Sermons  for  Children 

C.E.  JEFFERSON 


GIFT  OF 


_.ZI--J 


MY  FATHER'S    BUSINESS 


BOOKS  BY  DR.  JEFFERSON 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  JESUS 

DOCTRINE  AND  DEED 

THE  MINISTER  AS  PROPHET 

THE  NEW  CRUSADE 

QUIET  HINTS  TO  GROWING  PREACHERS 

QUIET  TALKS  WITH  EARNEST  PEOPLE 

THINGS  FUNDAMENTAL 

MY  FATHER'S  BUSINESS 


CHRISTMAS  BUILDERS 

FAITH  AND  LIFE 

THE  OLD  YEAR  AND  THE  NEW 

THE  WORLD'S  CHRISTMAS  TREE 

THOMAS  Y.  CROWELL  &  CO. 

NEW  YORK 


MY        vTHER'S 
B  ESS 

TO   CHILDREN 


MY    FATHER'S 
BUSINESS 


A  SERIES  OF  SERMONS  TO    CHILDREN 


BY 


CHARLES   EDWARD   JEFFERSON 

v 

Pastor  of  Broadway   Tabernacle^  New   York 


NEW  YORK 
THOMAS   Y.  CROWELL  &   CO. 

PUBLISHERS 


COPYRIGHT,  1909 
BY  THOMAS  Y.    CROWELL  &  CO. 


Published,  September, 


.'.  •  •/•=:"••' 
/-  :  *  -/•• 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

Christ   and   the   Children      ....     Frontispiece 
From  the  drawing  by  Plockhorst 

PACK 

Christ    as   a    Child 24 

From  the  drawing  by  Jef  Leempoels 

Christ  and  the  Doctors 48 

From  the  drawing  by  H.   Hofmann 

"  And  He  was  Subject  unto  Them  "...        74 

From  the  drawing  by  H.  Hofmann 

The     Boy     Samuel .      100 

From  the  drawing  by  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds 

The     Good     Shepherd 120 

From  the  drawing  by  F.  J.  Shields 
Christ    the    Carpenter     .      .      .      ...      .      .      148 

From  the  drawing  by  Holman   Hunt 
Christ    Preaching   to    the    People     .      .      .      .      178 

From  the  drawing  by  H.  Hofmann 

Christ  Washing   Peter's   Feet 212 

From  the  drawing  by  Ford  Madox  Brown 

The  Ascension 240 

From  the  drawing  by  E.  von  Liphart 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I.  LINE    UPON   LINE i 

II.  How  TO  GROW 23 

III.  THE  DUTY  OF  ASKING  QUESTIONS     .  47 

IV.  THE  BEAUTY  OF  OBEDIENCE     ...  73 
V.  MY   FATHER'S   BUSINESS     ....  99 

VI.  THE    SILENT   YEARS       .     .     .     :.     .  119 

VII.  WORK       .       .......     ;.,  147 

VIII.  THE   WILL      ......     ..     .  177 

IX.  HONESTY       .        ..     .     .     :.     .     :.:    :.;  211 

X.  BEING    A    CHRISTIAN     .     .     .     .     .  239 


LINE    UPON    LINE 

"  For  it  is  precept  upon  precept,  pre- 
cept upon  precept;  line  upon  line, 
line  upon  line;  here  a  little,  and  there 
a  little."  ISAIAH  28:  10. 

Preached  Sunday  Morning 
May    13,    1900 


LINE  UPON   LINE 

jn  DB>  Tin  ip!>  ip  ipi>  ip  \A  w  TC^  rc  ip 

THE  Old  Testament  was  written,  as 
you  know,  in  Hebrew,  and  in  order 
that  you  may  know  what  the  lan- 
guage of  the  Old  Testament  is  like  I  want 
to  give  you  a  quotation  from  the  Hebrew: 
"  Tsav  la  tsav,  tsav  la  tsav;  qav  la  qav,  qav 
la  qav;  z'eir  sham,  z'eir  sham."    As  some 
of  you  may  not  be  able  to  remember  these 
unusual  words,  allow  me  to  give  it  to  you 
now  in  English:    "Precept  upon  precept, 
precept  upon  precept;  line  upon  line,  line 
upon  line;  here  a  little,  and  there  a  little." 
You  will  find  the  words  recorded  in  the 
loth  verse  of  the  a8th  chapter  of  Isaiah. 
Most  of  you,  I  suppose,  have  never  read 
[3] 


LINE  UPON  LINE 
this  chapter  in  Isaiah,  and  if  any  of  you 
have  read  it,  I  suspect  you  have  not  made 
much  out  of  it.  And  that  is  not  at  all  sur- 
prising, for  often  big  folks  when  they  read 
this  chapter  do  not  have  an  altogether  easy 
time.  I  want,  therefore,  to  pinch  a  piece  of 
it  off  and  shoot  light  through  it,  that  you 
may  see  what  an  interesting  chapter  it 
really  is. 

In  order  to  understand  Isaiah  you  must 
use  your  imagination.  The  imagination  is 
the  power  of  the  mind  which  sees  things  in 
pictures.  Boys  and  girls  are  rich  in  imagi- 
nation. In  that  respect  they  are  like  the 
prophets.  No  one  can  understand  a 
prophet  unless  he  has  an  imagination  and 
uses  it. 

The  first  thing  you  must  see  is  the  City  of 

Samaria.    There  it  is  on  the  summit  of  a 

hill.    The  hill  is  the  shape  of  an  egg.    The 

slopes  of  the  hill  are  covered  with  vine- 

[4] 


LINE   UPON   LINE 

yards.  All  around  the  hill  there  are  lovely 
valleys,  and  the  sides  of  these  valleys  are 
clothed  with  olive  trees.  Do  you  see  the 
city  with  its  towers  green  with  ivy,  with  its 
gardens  of  bloom,  and  with  its  hillsides 
beautiful  with  vines  and  olive  trees?  If 
you  see  that,  you  see  what  Isaiah  saw. 

Samaria  is  a  wicked  city.  Many  of  its 
men  and  women  are  bad.  They  live  in 
laziness  and  sin.  They  spend  much  of  their 
time  in  eating  big  dinners.  And  at  these 
dinners  they  drink  wine,  many  of  them 
drinking  until  they  are  drunk.  Leading 
men  of  Samaria  have  a  fashion  of  putting 
an  enemy  into  their  mouth  which  steals 
away  their  brains.  There  they  are,  lying 
half  drunk  on  their  cushions  while  their  na- 
tion is  rushing  on  to  ruin.  If  you  see  that 
you  see  what  Isaiah  saw. 

We  are  now  ready  for  the  first  verse  in 
the  chapter.  "Woe  unto  you,  drunkards  I 
[5] 


LINE  UPON  LINE 
Your  beauty  is  a  fading  flower.  God's 
storm  is  coming  from  the  north,  and  you 
will  be  overwhelmed."  In  order  to  startle 
these  men  and  make  them  realize  what  a 
dreadful  fate  is  hanging  over  them,  the 
prophet  paints  four  striking  pictures.  He 
says,  "  Woe  unto  you  drunkards,  the  enemy 
from  the  north  will  beat  you  down  like  a 
hail  storm.  You  will  be  swept  away  as  with 
a  flood.  You  will  be  trampled  into  the  dust 
under  victorious  feet.  You  will  be  like  a 
fig  ripe  in  the  month  of  June,  fully  two 
months  before  the  time  for  figs,  and  just 
as  a  man  when  he  finds  a  June  fig  is  so  de- 
lighted with  a  delicacy  so  rare,  that  no 
sooner  does  he  get  it  into  his  hand  than  he 
puts  it  into  his  mouth;  so  the  moment  the 
enemy  from  the  north  gets  you  into  his 
clutches  he  will  swallow  you!"  All  this 
fills  up  the  first  seven  verses  of  this  wonder- 
ful chapter. 

[6] 


LINE  UPON  LINE 
Then  the  prophet  turns  to  Jerusalem. 
He  looks  at  the  politicians  and  leaders  and 
merchants  and  even  the  preachers,  and  sees 
that  they,  like  the  lords  and  ladies  in 
Samaria,  are  lazy  and  selfish  and  drunken. 
With  sadness  he  says,  "These  my  country- 
men reel  and  stagger.  They  cannot  see 
straight  or  think  straight.  Their  eyes  totter, 
their  mind  wabbles." 

While  Isaiah  pours  forth  his  warnings, 
his  countrymen  say  to  one  another  with 
mocking  sarcasm:  "Whom  is  this  man 
talking  to?  Does  he  take  us  for  babies? 
Does  he  suppose  that  we  have  just  been 
weaned?  Why  does  he  feed  us  on  such 
nursery  stuff?  "  Then  they  begin  to  mimic 
him.  They  think  he  is  monotonous,  and 
that  his  language  is  babyish,  and  so  they 
ape  his  tones  and  language  after  this  fash- 
ion :  "  Tsav  la  tsav,  tsav  la  tsav ;  qav  la  qav, 
qav  la  qav."  Can't  you  imagine  you  hear 
[7] 


LINE  UPON  LINE 
them? — that  little  toper  with  the  high  shrill 
voice  saying :  "  Tsav  la  tsav,  tsav  la  tsav  "? 
— that  bloated  sot  saying,  with  drunken  ac- 
cent :  "  Qav  la  qav,  qav  la  qav  "  ? — that  old 
wine  bibber,  with  his  deep  bass  voice,  say- 
ing in  taunting  tones:  "Z'eir  sham,  z'eir 
sham"? 

The  prophet  listens  to  their  mimicry,  and 
is  not  silenced  by  it.  Turning  on  them  he 
says:  "God  will  speak  to  you  monoto- 
nously in  another  way  by  and  by.  This 
enemy  from  the  north  will  say  to  you: 
"  Tsav  la  tsav,  tsav  la  tsav; qav  la  qav,  qav  la 
qav;  z'eir  sham,  z'eir  sham."  And  he  will 
say  it  in  a  way  from  which  there  shall  be 
no  escape.  When  the  time  comes  for  God 
to  speak  to  you,  you  will  find  a  monotony  in 
woe,  and  because  of  your  sins  you  will  be 
captured  and  broken  and  ruined.  That  is 
the  meaning  of  the  chapter  down  through 
verse  13. 

[8] 


LINE  UPON  LINE 
I  have  taken  my  text  from  this  chapter 
this  morning,  because  boys  and  girls  some- 
times talk  and  act  very  much  like  the  drunk- 
ards in  Jerusalem.  Strange  to  say,  boys  and 
girls  sometimes  get  tipsy.  I  do  not  mean 
that  they  drink  wine  or  gin  or  whiskey,  but 
there  are  other  things  besides  spirituous 
liquors  that  cause  intoxication.  Any  poison 
which  upsets  the  mind  makes  one  drunk. 
The  soul  is  a  palace.  At  the  center  of  the 
palace  there  is  a  throne.  On  the  throne 
there  is  a  king.  And  the  name  of  that  king 
is  reason.  If  any  poison  breaks  into  the 
palace  and  topples  reason  from  its  throne, 
the  soul  immediately  reels  and  staggers  like 
a  drunken  man.  For  instance,  it  is  possible 
to  be  drunk  with  anger.  A  person  may  be 
so  angry  that  he  cannot  see  straight  or  think 
straight  or  talk  straight.  In  a  fit  of  anger 
one  does  not  always  know  just  what  he  is 
doing.  In  a  spasm  of  anger-drunkenness  a 
[9] 


LINE   UPON   LINE 

boy  or  girl  or  man  or  woman  may  do  those 
things  for  which  afterward  he  is  heartily 
ashamed. 

Hate  is  another  poison  which  makes  the 
soul  drunk.  When  we  hate  a  person  we  be- 
come as  blear-eyed  as  a  toper.  We  cannot 
see  clearly,  and  make  all  sorts  of  false  and 
foolish  statements.  A  person  may  get 
drunk  on  pride.  He  may  become  puffed 
up,  and  go  swaggering  through  the  town 
with  all  the  silly  bluster  of  a  drunkard. 
Self-conceit  also  has  made  many  a  person 
drunk.  A  self-conceited  man  may  hold  his 
head  so  high  as  to  cause  his  brain  to  grow 
dizzy,  so  that  he  cannot  recognize  old  ac- 
quaintances when  he  meets  them  on  the 
street. 

In  all  these  various  ways  it  is  possible  for 
even  boys  and  girls  to  lose  their  heads.  But 
one  of  the  worst  poisons  which  you  can  ever 
take  into  your  heart  and  mind  is  the  poison 

[10] 


LINE   UPON   LINE 

of  disobedience.  Sometimes  when  parents 
speak  to  their  children  about  things  which 
they  ought  to  do,  or  ought  not  to  do,  the 
children  get  off  by  themselves  and  say,  "  Do 
they  take  us  for  babies,  do  they  think  we 
don't  know  anything?"  Whenever  a  boy 
or  girl  says  that,  he  is  acting  precisely  as  the 
topers  of  Jerusalem  did.  Sometimes  boys 
rebel  against  their  mother,  and  scold  be- 
cause they  are  spoken  to  so  many  times. 
They  say,  "  Why,  mother,  you  have  told  me 
that  twenty  times.  Do  not  tell  it  to  me 
any  more.  You  are  always  harping  on  the 
same  old  string.  Why  don't  you  tell  me 
something  new?"  And  occasionally  if  a 
boy  is  very  drunk  he  will  even  go  so  far  as 
to  mimic  his  parents.  He  will  say  behind 
their  backs :  "  Tsav  la  tsav,  tsav  la  tsav;  qav 
la  qav,  qav  la  qav;  z'eir  sham,  z'eir  sham." 
Of  course  he  does  not  speak  in  Hebrew. 
He  speaks  in  English.  The  words  of  the 


LINE  UPON   LINE 
Hebrew   drunkards  when   translated   into 
New   York    English    mean    simply    this: 
"  Bah,  bah,  bah,  bah,  go  away! " 

Why  is  it  that  your  parents  tell  you  the 
same  thing  so  many  times?  It  is  because 
they  are  ordained  servants  of  the  Lord. 
Your  father  is  a  prophet,  and  your  mother 
is  a  prophetess,  and  their  chief  business  in 
the  world  is  to  teach  to  you  the  law  of  God. 
In  the  Book  of  Deuteronomy  we  are  told 
that  God  instructed  Moses  to  tell  all  the 
fathers  and  mothers  among  the  Hebrews  to 
teach  his  laws  diligently  unto  their  chil- 
dren, and  to  talk  of  them  when  they  sat 
down  in  the  house,  and  when  they  walked 
by  the  way,  and  when  they  lay  down,  and 
when  they  got  up.  Fathers  and  mothers 
were  commanded  to  bind  God's  laws  upon 
their  hands,  and  to  stamp  them  across  their 
foreheads,  and  to  write  them  upon  the  posts 
of  their  houses  and  upon  their  gates. 

[12] 


LINE  UPON   LINE 

Parents  were  thus  commanded  to  keep 
God's  law  before  the  eyes  of  their  children 
all  the  time.  If  fathers  and  mothers  do  not 
do  this,  they  are  committing  the  greatest  sin 
which  it  is  possible  for  parents  to  be  guilty 
of.  They  tell  you  the  same  things  over  and 
over  again  because  God  has  commanded 
them  to  do  it. 

Moreover,  it  is  necessary  for  them  to  say 
the  same  things  many  times  in  order  to  get 
these  things  into  your  mind  and  heart.  It 
takes  a  deal  of  repetition  to  get  a  big  idea 
into  a  small  boy's  soul.  Did  you  ever  see  a 
pile  driver  driving  piles?  The  pile  driver 
shoots  up  into  the  air  a  great  mass  of  iron, 
and  without  a  moment's  warning  lets  it 
drop  upon  the  head  of  the  pile.  The  pile 
does  not  mind  the  first  blow  very  much,  and 
stands  almost  as  proud  and  tall  as  ever. 
But  the  pile  driver  keeps  right  on  at  its 
work.  It  lifts  the  iron  into  the  air  and 
[13] 


LINE  UPON  LINE 
lets  it  drop  five  times,  ten  times,  fifty  times, 
perhaps  a  hundred  times,  and  by  and  by 
the  pile  is  driven  down  deep  into  the  river 
bed,  and  is  so  firm  and  safe  that  men  are 
not  afraid  to  make  it  part  of  the  foundation 
of  a  house.  Fathers  and  mothers  must  drive 
principles  into  their  children's  hearts  be- 
cause these  principles  are  the  piles  upon 
which  the  house  of  character  must  be 
erected.  If  the  piles  are  not  deep  and  solid 
the  house  in  later  years  will  come  tumbling 
down.  It  is  for  your  eternal  good  that  pre- 
cept is  placed  upon  precept,  and  line  is 
placed  upon  line. 

A  man  who  cuts  a  sentence  upon  a  block 
of  marble  spends  many  hours  in  doing  it. 
He  taps  his  chisel  with  his  mallet  time  after 
time,  holding  the  chisel  point,  so  it  seems, 
in  almost  precisely  the  same  place,  and  for 
good  reason.  No  one  can  chisel  words 
beautifully  with  a  single  blow.  The  more 


LINE  UPON   LINE 

beautifully  the  work  is  done  the  larger  must 
be  the  number  of  strokes,  and  the  longer 
must  be  the  time  expended.  Not  only  does 
the  marble  cutter  want  to  make  the  words 
beautiful,  but  he  wants  to  cut  them  so  that 
the  storms  of  winter  will  not  rub  them  out. 
He  must  cut  these  words  so  deep  that  they 
will  last  long  after  the  marble  cutter  is  in 
his  grave.  Fathers  and  mothers  must  cut 
upon  their  children's  hearts  the  words  of 
God's  eternal  law.  It  is  the  most  beautiful 
work  which  anyone  can  do,  and  it  cannot 
be  accomplished  without  much  patience  and 
long  continued  labor.  The  heart  is  harder 
than  any  marble,  and  in  order  that  words 
may  last  after  the  human  body  has  been 
worn  out  and  cast  away,  it  is  necessary  for 
fathers  and  mothers  in  the  training  of  their 
children  to  hit  the  heart  repeatedly  day 
after  day,  week  after  week,  month  after 
month,  through  many  a  year.  In  this  way 
[15] 


LINE  UPON   LINE 

they  are  able  to  do  work  which  will  outlast 
the  stars. 

When  a  stone  mason  wants  to  break  a 
large  stone  in  two,  he  lifts  up  his  sledge 
hammer  and  strikes  the  stone.  The  stone 
in  many  instances  pays  no  attention  to  the 
blow,  but  lies  sullen  and  stubborn,  looking 
at  the  mason  in  a  way  which  says,  "You 
can't  break  me  I"  The  mason  strikes  the 
stone  again,  and  still  the  stone  remains  un- 
broken. He  strikes  it  three  times,  four 
times,  but  not  until  the  hammer  descends 
for  the  ninth  time  does  the  stone  submit  and 
break  in  two.  Which  of  the  nine  blows 
broke  the  stone?  Certainly  not  the  first  or 
the  second  or  the  third,  nor  was  it  the  sev- 
enth or  the  eighth  or  the  ninth.  It  was  all 
the  nine  blows  combined  which  accom- 
plished the  work. 

Bad  habits  like  stones  are  broken  by  re- 
peated blows.  Every  one  of  you  has  a  bad 
[16] 


LINE  UPON  LINE 
habit.  If  you  do  not  know  what  your  bad 
habit  is,  ask  your  mother  and  she  will  tell 
you.  These  bad  habits  must  be  broken. 
The  only  way  to  break  them  is  to  strike 
them  again  and  again  and  again.  You  must 
strike  them  and  you  must  strike  them  hard, 
and  in  this  work  your  parents  must  assist 
you.  The  only  reason  that  they  keep  strik- 
ing your  bad  habits  is  because  they  wish  to 
set  you  free. 

Your  father  and  mother  do  not  tell  you 
many  different  things  because  there  are  not 
many  different  things  to  tell.  There  are 
only  a  few  letters  in  the  alphabet.  And 
after  you  have  learned  them  all  there  are  no 
more  letters  to  be  learned.  When  once  you 
have  mastered  the  twenty-six  letters,  you  can 
read  the  largest  English  book  ever  pub- 
lished. Even  in  the  Bible  there  are  only 
twenty-six  letters.  There  are  only  a  few 
kinds  of  figures, — just  as  many  as  you  have 


LINE  UPON  LINE 
fingers  on  both  your  hands.  After  you  have 
learned  these  ten  there  are  no  more  to  learn, 
Tou  cannot  find  in  any  arithmetic  a  figure 
different  from  those  ten  which  you  learned 
when  you  first  went  to  schooL  There  are 
only  a  few  tones  in  music.  Even  the  finest 
voice  cannot  produce  many  tones.  After 
one  has  mastered  these  few  tones  he  can  sing 
any  song  that  was  ever  written.  There  are 
only  a  few  laws  of  life,  but  these  few  laws 
are  all  important  If  you  learn  these  laws 
and  learn  them  thoroughly,  your  life  will  be 
blessed  all  your  days.  Your  parents  harp 
on  a  few  strings  because  out  of  these  few 
strings  all  the  music  of  your  life  is  going 
to  come. 

It  was  not  pleasant  for  Isaiah  to  warn  the 
drunkards  in  Jerusalem  when  he  knew  that 
the  drunkards  did  not  care  to  listen  to  what 
he  said  But  Isaiah  knew  that  it  was  his 
duty  to  warn  these  men  because  he  saw 
[18] 


LINE  UPON  LINE 
things  which  were  hidden  from  their  eyes. 
To  see  anyone  in  danger  and  not  give  that 
person  a  word  of  warning  is  a  fearful  sin. 
Boys  and  girls  are  in  great  danger,  and  that 
is  why  fathers  and  mothers  must  speak  so 
many  times.  Young  people  cannot  see  very 
far.  A  boy  at  five  cannot  see  five  years 
ahead  of  him.  A  boy  at  fifteen  cannot  see 
his  twentieth  birthday.  No  one  of  us  can 
see  one  step  beyond  the  point  in  life  up  to 
which  we  have  lived,  unless  we  use  the 
knowledge  which  has  been  gained  by  those 
who  have  lived  beyond  us.  No  one  knows 
the  enemies  that  lurk  in  ambush  by  the  way 
except  those  who  have  traveled  along  that 
road.  Fathers  and  mothers  have  traveled 
long  distances  through  life,  and  they  know 
a  thousand  things  which  their  children  can- 
not know.  It  is  because  they  see  the  pitfalls 
and  the  temptations  and  the  awful  dangers, 
that  they  keep  saying  to  you :  "  Do  this, 


LINE  UPON   LINE 

and  don't  do  that."    They  do  not  want  you 
to  be  captured  and  broken  and  ruined. 

The  teaching  of  your  parents  may  seem 
to  be  monotonous,  but  it  is  not  so  monoto- 
nous as  the  teaching  which  you  will  receive 
by  and  by  if  you  do  not  heed  your  parents' 
words.  If  you  do  not  like  the  monotony  of 
advice  you  will  like  still  less  the  monotony 
of  punishment.  In  youth  you  are  offered 
the  "  Tsav  la  tsav,  tsav  la  tsav ;  qav  la  qav, 
qav  la  qav;"  from  the  best  friends  which 
you  will  ever  have,  your  father  and  mother. 
But  if  you  do  not  receive  what  they  try  to 
give  you,  then,  later  on,  your  enemy  will 
speak  to  you  a  "  Tsav  la  tsav,  tsav  la  tsav; " 
which  will  make  you  wince  and  groan.  For 
if  you  do  not  obey  God's  laws,  if  you  are 
not  good  children  of  your  Heavenly  Father, 
your  accusing  conscience  will  some  day  cry 
out  in  a  terrible  monotone :  "  Tsav  la  tsav, 
tsav  la  tsav."  You  will  have  pain  upon 
[20] 


LINE  UPON  LINE 
pain,  loss  upon  loss,  woe  upon  woe,  and  will 
fall  at  last  into  the  very  ruin  from  which 
your  parents  tried  to  save  you.  Listen,  then, 
to  the  exhortation  of  St.  Paul:  "  Children, 
obey  your  parents  in  the  Lord,  for  this  is 
right."  "  Honor  your  father  and  mother, 
that  it  may  be  well  with  you,  and  that  you 
may  live  long  on  the  earth." 


[21] 


II 

HOW    TO    GROW 

"And    the    child   grew."    LUKE   2:40. 

Preached  Sunday  Morning 

May   12,   1901 


HOW  TO   GROW 

/"  |  ^HAT  is  the  first  thing  which  the 
New  Testament  says  Jesus  ever  did. 
It  is  the  only  thing  which  the  New 
Testament  says  Jesus  did  in  the  first  twelve 
years  of  his  life.  Across  the  pages  of  twelve 
great  years  St.  Luke  writes  that  simple  sen- 
tence, "  And  the  child  grew."  At  the  age 
of  twelve  Jesus  comes  before  us  and  speaks. 
He  speaks  but  once  and  then  like  a  meteor 
disappears.  We  do  not  see  or  hear  Him 
for  eighteen  long  years.  Across  these  years 
of  silence  St.  Luke  writes  the  words,  "  He 
increased  in  wisdom  and  in  stature,"  that 
is,  "  He  kept  right  on  growing."  The 
chief  fact,  then,  in  the  life  of  Jesus  up  to 
his  thirtieth  birthday  is  the  fact  that  He 
grew.  Since  the  New  Testament  has  writ- 
[25] 


HOW  TO   GROW 

ten  that  fact  so  large  and  has  made  it  stand 
out  all  alone  so  that  we  should  be  sure  to 
see  it,  we  ought  to  ask  what  it  means  and 
find  out  what  it  teaches. 

For  what  Jesus  did  we  must  do.  To  be 
a  Christian  is  to  be  a  follower  of  Him. 
He  is  the  ideal  man,  and  what  He  did  all 
men  must  do.  He  is  the  ideal  child  and 
what  He  did  all  children  ought  to  do.  If 
we  are  to  follow  Him,  we  ought  to  begin  in 
childhood,  and  the  starting  point  of  all  dis- 
cipleship  is  stated  in  these  four  short  words : 
"  And  the  child  grew." 

That  was  the  chief  thing  which  the  boy 
Jesus  did.  If  He  had  not  grown  He  could 
not  have  done  later  on  His  mighty  deeds, 
nor  spoken  His  wonderful  words.  He 
grew  so  fast  that  when  He  went  to  Jeru- 
salem, at  the  age  of  twelve,  the  big  learned 
city  doctors  wondered  at  Him,  and  by  the 
time  He  was  thirty  He  had  grown  so  far 
[26] 


HOW  TO   GROW 

beyond  all  the  other  boys  of  His  town  that 
men  and  women  looked  at  Him  in  amaze- 
ment, not  knowing  what  to  think  or  say. 
In  those  thirty  years  He  had  grown  to  be  so 
strong  and  brave  and  wise  and  good  that  He 
still  overtops  all  the  men  who  have  ever 
lived,  and  when  anybody  says,  "  Behold  the 
man ! "  we  look  up  and  see  no  man,  but  Jesus 
only.  We  should  have  no  New  Testament, 
no  Christian  hymns,  no  Christian  church,  if 
Jesus  had  not  grown. 

The  chief  thing  for  every  boy  and  girl  to 
do  is  to  grow.  The  world  does  not  want 
boys  and  girls  to  work.  Grown  folks  can  do 
the  work.  Houses  must  be  built,  and  fur- 
niture manufactured,  and  streets  paved,  and 
cars  run,  and  business  carried  on,  but  we  do 
not  want  boys  to  do  these  things.  Boys  have 
nothing  to  do  but  grow.  Dresses  must  be 
made,  and  dinners  cooked,  and  scrubbing 
done,  but  we  do  not  want  girls  to  do  it. 
[27] 


HOW  TO   GROW 

Girls  have  nothing  to  do  but  grow.  The 
world  is  very  particular  on  this  point.  It 
says :  "  Now  do  not  disturb  those  children. 
They  are  busy  with  their  growing.  Do  not 
ask  them  to  do  any  work,  for  they  must 
have  a  chance  to  grow!"  And  so  the  men 
and  women  do  all  the  work.  They  work 
to  get  money  to  buy  bread  and  meat,  and 
hats  and  clothes  and  boots,  and  books  and 
toys.  They  keep  the  boys  and  girls  supplied 
with  everything  they  need,  and  they  do  all 
this  that  every  boy  and  girl  may  grow. 

Now,  children  must  grow  all  over.  Every 
human  being  is  made  up  of  two  pieces. 
One  piece  you  can  see,  that  is  the  body;  the 
other  piece  you  cannot  see,  that  is  the  mind. 
You  can  see  a  boy's  eyes,  but  not  his  mem- 
ory. You  can  see  his  ears,  but  not  his 
imagination.  You  can  see  his  nose,  but  not 
his  will.  Eyes  and  ears  are  organs  of  the 
body,  memory  and  will  are  organs  of  the 
[28] 


HOW  TO   GROW 

mind,  and  all  alike  must  grow.  A  child 
must  grow  both  in  body  and  in  mind  to 
make  a  complete  man. 

That  is  the  way  Jesus  grew.  St.  Luke 
says:  "He  increased  in  wisdom  and  in 
stature."  Stature  means  standing,  or  height. 
Jesus'  body  grew  taller  and  taller.  Once, 
when  they  measured  Him,  He  was  only  two 
feet  tall,  but  He  soon  added  another  inch 
and  then  another,  and  another,  and  another. 
The  women  in  Nazareth  used  to  say  to 
Mary,  "  How  that  boy  of  yours  is  grow- 
ing!" And  I  know  that  Mary  felt  very 
proud,  for  mothers  are  always  glad  to  have 
their  children  grow. 

But  the  inward  growth  of  Jesus  was  more 
wonderful  than  that  of  His  body.  His 
mind  grew  wider  and  deeper  and  higher. 
His  disposition  became  sweeter  and  richer 
and  gentler.  His  spirit  waxed  loftier  and 
nobler  and  mightier,  until  He  at  last  be- 
[29] 


HOW  TO   GROW 

came  great  enough  to  say,  "  Come  unto  Me 
all  ye  that  labor  and  are  heavy  laden,  and  I 
will  give  you  rest."  He  took  this  world  in 
His  arms.  I  have  often  wondered  how 
Mary  felt  when  she  saw  her  boy  growing. 
How  pleased  and  delighted  she  must  have 
been  to  see  His  mind  unfold,  to  watch  His 
affections  expand,  to  note  new  graces  burst- 
ing into  blossom.  I  think  she  must  have 
been  the  happiest  woman  in  all  Galilee,  for 
nothing  makes  a  mother's  heart  so  happy  as 
to  see  her  children  grow;  not  simply  in 
body,  but  in  goodness  and  in  all  beautiful 
dispositions  Jesus  grew  to  be  so  true  and 
wise  and  noble  that  Mary  almost  wor- 
shiped him.  Before  the  world  knew  any- 
thing about  Him  she  knew  how  wonderful 
He  was.  You  can  see  what  confidence  she 
had  in  Him  from  what  she  said  to  some 
men  at  the  marriage  feast  in  Cana:  "  What- 
soever He  saith  unto  you,  do  it."  She  never 
[30] 


HOW  TO   GROW 

would  have  said  that  had  he  not  been  a 
good  boy. 

Now,  a  child  may  grow  in  one  part  of 
his  nature  and  not  grow  in  the  other.  Some- 
times children  are  born  with  a  disease  that 
will  not  let  them  grow.  Their  body  reaches 
a  certain  point  and  then  stops.  The  parents 
coax  it  with  all  kinds  of  food,  and  the  doc- 
tors coddle  it  with  all  kinds  of  remedies, 
but  not  all  the  king's  horses,  nor  all  the 
king's  men  can  tempt  the  little  body  to  grow 
any  more.  It  is  a  terrible  disappointment 
for  parents  to  have  a  child  whose  body  will 
not  grow.  It  makes  them  sad.  When  a 
mother  says,  "  The  baby  is  not  growing.  He 
has  not  grown  a  bit  for  a  long  time,"  she 
says  it  with  great  sorrow  in  her  voice,  for 
she  knows  that  in  all  probability  the  baby 
is  going  to  die.  Children  are  made  to  grow, 
and  if  they  do  not  grow  they  cannot  live. 
Or  if  they  do  live  they  are  not  like  other 


HOW  TO   GROW 

people.  They  are  known  as  dwarfs  or 
pygmies.  Poor  little  things,  they  are  some- 
times carried  over  the  country,  along  with 
chimpanzees  and  baboons  and  other  queer 
creatures,  so  that  people  can  see  them.  It 
is  an  awful  misfortune  to  have  a  body  which 
will  not  grow.  If  your  body  is  growing 
you  ought  to  be  thankful  every  day  you  live, 
and  tell  God  how  glad  you  are  He  has  given 
you  a  body  which  grows.  The  very  best 
thing  a  body  can  do  is  to  grow. 

But  sometimes  the  body  grows  and  the 
soul  remains  a  dwarf.  After  the  mind  has 
reached  a  certain  point  it  may  refuse  to 
grow  and  want  to  stay  where  it  is.  Big  men 
and  women  sometimes  have  very  small 
minds.  They  may  be  six  feet  tall  and  weigh 
ever  so  many  pounds,  and  still  have  a  little 
bit  of  a  soul.  Their  aims  may  be  low,  and 
their  ambitions  little,  and  their  sympathies 
narrow,  and  their  affections  stunted,  and 
[32] 


HOW  TO   GROW 

their  ideas  puny.  They  are  mental  dwarfs. 
Everybody  who  comes  near  them  knows 
they  are  small.  Their  conversation  is  thin, 
their  dealings  are  petty.  They  are  cross 
and  crabbed,  and  unreasonable  and  ugly, 
and  very  hard  to  get  along  with.  They  are 
hard  to  live  with  because  they  are  so  small. 
We  sometimes  call  such  people  childish, 
and  I  have  heard  them  called  big  babies. 
A  little  baby  a  few  months  old  is  the  sweet- 
est thing  in  all  the  world,  but  a  big  baby  is 
one  of  the  most  terrible  of  all  living  crea- 
tures. We  want  to  get  away  from  that  sort 
of  baby  as  far  as  we  can.  Jesus'  life  was 
made  miserable  by  big  babies.  There  were 
a  lot  of  them  in  Nazareth.  They  had  big 
bodies,  but  little  minds.  They  wanted  to 
kill  Jesus  simply  because  He  had  said  some- 
thing they  did  not  agree  with.  There  were 
other  babies  in  Capernaum.  They  would 
make  a  great  fuss  over  an  ox  which  had 
[33] 


HOW  TO   GROW 

fallen,  but  paid  no  attention  to  a  fallen  man. 
Jerusalem  was  filled  with  these  babies. 
They  dipped  their  fingers  in  water  twenty 
times  every  day  in  order  to  show  God  how 
clean  they  were,  but  they  never  took  the 
trouble  to  drive  dirty  thoughts  out  of  their 
minds.  What  babies  they  were!  I  do  not 
wonder  that  Jesus  looked  at  them  with  as- 
tonishment and  sorrow. 

It  is  an  awful  thing,  boys  and  girls,  to 
build  up  your  body,  and  let  your  soul  re- 
main a  pigmy.  What  a  tragedy!  It  is  sui- 
cide. When  the  soul  is  created  to  grow  into 
the  image  of  God,  what  a  pity  to  crush  it 
down  into  a  miserable  little  runt!  And  what 
a  shame  and  disgrace  it  is,  for  if  the  mind 
does  not  grow  it  is  nearly  always  a  person's 
own  fault.  When  the  body  will  not  grow, 
one  cannot  help  it.  Tom  Thumb  was  not 
to  blame  because  his  body  was  so  small.  But 
when  the  soul  remains  a  dwarf  it  is  usually 

[34] 


HOW  TO   GROW 

because  of  sin.  Shame  on  you  if  you  do  not 
grow !  I  would  rather  have  a  body  only  two 
feet  high,  with  a  mind  inside  my  little  skull 
capable  of  thinking  great  thoughts  and  ap- 
preciating noble  people  and  lovely  music 
and  pictures,  and  dreaming  beautiful 
dreams,  than  be  as  huge  as  Goliath,  with  a 
little  mind  in  my  big  skull  no  larger  than 
the  mind  of  a  cat!  Jesus  is  King  of  Kings 
and  Lord  of  Lords  because  He  grew  in 
wisdom  as  well  as  in  stature.  He  grew  both 
in  body  and  in  mind. 

Some  one  may  ask,  "  How  can  I  grow?  " 
Let  me  find  you  an  answer  in  the  Sermon  on 
the  Mount.  "  Consider  the  lilies  of  the 
field,  how  they  grow."  How  do  they 
grow?  By  working,  or  worrying,  or  strug- 
gling? No ;  simply  by  doing  what  God  tells 
lilies  to  do.  God  wants  lilies  to  keep  them- 
selves partly  in  the  earth  and  partly  in  the 
sun,  and  when  they  do  that,  they  become 
[35] 


HOW  TO  GROW 

more  beautiful  than  the  most  gorgeous  of 
all  Oriental  kings.  In  other  words,  all  that 
a  lily  has  to  do  is  to  eat.  It  must  eat  both 
the  earth  and  the  sky.  It  must  reach  down 
into  the  dark  earth  for  mica  and  feldspar 
and  lime,  and  it  must  look  up  for  the  sun- 
beam and  rain.  By  eating  day  by  day  the 
food  which  God  has  placed  within  its  reach, 
it  becomes  a  miracle  of  beauty  and  a  joy 
to  all  the  world.  No  wonder  Jesus  said, 
"  Look  at  the  lilies!"  Lilies  and  children 
are  alike  in  one  thing.  Their  chief  business 
is  to  grow,  and  in  order  to  grow  they  must 
eat. 

Do  you  want  to  grow  in  body?  Eat. 
Do  not  eat  everything  you  fancy,  or  every- 
thing which  boys  and  girls  give  you  to  eat, 
but  eat  what  your  father  and  mother  know 
to  be  good.  They  know  what  your  body 
needs.  You  do  not  know.  God  commands 
a  lily  to  look  to  the  earth  and  sun  for  its 
[36] 


HOW  TO  GROW 

food.  God  commands  boys  and  girls  to  look 
to  their  parents  for  food.  Suppose  a  lily 
should  pout  and  say,  "Old  earth,  you  do 
not  know  what  I  need,"  and  then  toss  its 
pretty  head  and  say,  "  Old  sun,  I  can  get  on 
without  any  help  from  you,"  what  a  foolish 
lily  that  would  be.  But  there  never  was  a 
foolish  lily  since  the  world  was  made.  All 
the  lilies  have  obeyed  the  command  of  God. 
They  have  looked  constantly  to  the  earth 
and  sun,  and  God  has  given  them  a  beauty 
whose  praises  have  filled  all  the  world.  See 
how  the  lilies  grow.  They  obey  God, — do 
what  God  tells  you  to  do.  Look  to  your 
parents  for  your  daily  food  and  you  will 
have  a  body  more  beautiful  and  wonderful 
than  the  body  of  a  flower.  If  God  so 
clothes  the  grass  of  the  field  which  to-day 
is,  and  to-morrow  is  cast  into  the  oven,  shall 
he  not  much  more  clothe  you,  O  you  pre- 
cious boys  and  girls? 

I  37] 


HOW  TO   GROW 

Be  careful  how  and  what  you  eat.  Your 
body  is  the  house  in  which  your  soul  must 
do  its  work.  If  you  do  not  build  it  strong, 
it  will  soon  wear  out  and  come  tumbling 
down  in  ruin.  When  the  house  falls  down 
the  soul  is  obliged  to  leave.  A  soul  cannot 
live  on  this  earth  outside  of  a  body,  so  that 
if  your  body  falls,  your  soul  must  travel  to 
some  other  world,  and  you  can  never  do 
here  what  God  wanted  you  to  do.  Build 
your  body  out  of  the  very  best  materials 
your  parents  can  supply. 

But  the  mind,  also,  must  have  its  food. 
The  body  eats  out  of  the  earth,  the  soul  eats 
out  of  the  sky.  Your  soul  cannot  possibly 
grow  unless  you  feed  it  every  day.  That  is 
the  reason  we  send  you  to  school.  We  want 
you  to  eat  your  lessons.  Arithmetic  and 
language  and  science  are  all  foods  for  the 
mind.  We  buy  you  books  in  order  that  you 
may  eat  them.  If  you  eat  a  bad  book  it 
[38] 


HOW  TO  GROW 

makes  you  scrawny  and  half  sick,  but  if  you 
eat  a  good  book  it  will  increase  the  muscles 
of  your  mind.  The  Bible  is  the  best  of  all 
books.  You  ought  to  eat  a  piece  of  it  every 
day.  People  that  eat  it  regularly  every  day 
of  their  life  increase  in  wisdom  and  in 
stature,  and  in  favor  with  God  and  man. 
The  chief  reason  why  you  ought  to  come  to 
church  is  in  order  that  you  may  eat.  By 
eating  the  hymns  and  the  prayers  and  the 
sermon  you  will  grow  into  strong  and  capa- 
ble servants  of  God.  You  can  never  grow 
unless  you  eat. 

Jesus  was  fond  of  growing  things.  In 
His  teaching  He  never  spoke  of  stars  and 
rocks,  but  He  was  always  talking  about 
grass  and  flowers,  and  grain  and  trees.  I 
wonder  if  this  is  the  explanation.  Stars 
and  rocks  do  not  grow,  but  flowers  and 

trees  do.    There  was  nothing  more  interest- 

j 

ing  to  Jesus  than  a  seed.    I  am  sure  He  was 
[39] 


HOW  TO   GROW 

interested  in  a  seed  simply  because  it  grows. 
I  imagine  one  of  the  reasons  He  was  so  fond 
of  children  is  that  children  grow.  They  re- 
minded him  of  the  lilies  of  the  field.  He 
was  very  fond  of  them.  His  disciples  tried 
to  keep  them  away,  but  He  said,  "  Let  them 
come."  The  Pharisees  tried  to  stop  the 
singing  of  the  children  in  the  temple,  but 
He  said,  "  Let  them  sing."  He  took  a  child 
and  set  him  in  the  midst  of  a  company  of 
grown  folks  one  day  and  said :  "  Look,  this 
child  can  teach  you  many  lessons ! "  I  am 
sure  He  did  this  because  it  is  the  nature  of 
a  child  to  grow.  The  only  people  in  all 
Palestine  who  provoked  Jesus  beyond  en- 
durance were  the  people  who  did  not  want 
to  grow.  These  people  thought  they  had 
(grown  enough.  They  had  done  enough. 
They  knew  enough.  They  were  good 
enough.  They  had  reached  their  growth, 
and  there  was  nothing  more  to  do  but  looK 
[40] 


HOW  TO  GROW 

down  with  contempt  upon  their  neighbors 
who  had  not  grown  so  high  as  they  had. 
Jesus  could  do  nothing  with  such  people. 
He  cannot  do  anything  with  anybody  who 
does  not  want  to  grow. 

Nor  can  He  help  anybody  grow  who  will 
not  eat.  Growth  depends  almost  entirely 
on  eating.  He  was  always  talking  to  people 
about  eating.  One  day  He  said  to  a  great 
crowd  of  men:  "You  must  eat  My  flesh 
and  drink  My  blood,  or  you  can  have  no 
life  in  you."  That  was  His  way  of  saying, 
"  You  must  eat  My  ideas,  My  feelings,  My 
aims,  My  spirit,  or  you  are  not  really  alive. 
Unless  you  eat  Me — build  My  life  into 
your  life — you  cannot  grow  into  what  God 
wants  all  men  to  be."  And  on  the  last  night 
which  He  ever  spent  upon  our  earth  He 
came  back  to  this  old  problem  of  eating. 
One  of  the  last  things  He  said  to  His  dis- 
ciples was,  "  Eat,  eat  My  body.  Drink, 
[41] 


HOW  TO   GROW 

drink  My  blood."  Did  you  ever  wonder 
why  we  have  something  which  we  call  a 
"supper"  on  every  Communion  Sunday? 
Jesus  told  us  to  have  this  supper  because  He 
wants  us  to  remind  ourselves  again  and 
again  that  God  demands  nothing  so  much 
as  He  demands  growth,  and  that  it  is  im- 
possible for  us  to  grow  without  eating.  We 
must  feed  constantly  on  Him. 

Jesus  learned  this  by  His  own  experience. 
He  grew  by  eating.  He  could  not  have 
grown  in  any  other  way.  All  through  His 
boyhood  He  had  eaten  the  scriptures  and 
gotten  them  thoroughly  into  His  blood.  He 
had  drunk  His  mother's  prayers.  He  had 
eaten  the  Psalms  in  the  synagogue.  He  had 
eaten  the  sacrifices  in  the  temple.  He  had 
listened  to  what  God  had  said  in  the  silences 
of  His  life,  and  He  had  obeyed  Him  al- 
ways. That  is  why  He  could  say:  "  Man 
shall  not  live  by  bread  alone,  but  by  every 
[42] 


HOW  TO  GROW 

word  that  proceedeth  out  of  the  mouth  of 
God."  How  did  He  know  that?  He  had 
tried  it.  "  My  meat  is  to  do  the  will  of  Him 
that  sent  Me;  I  do  always  those  things 
which  are  pleasing  unto  Him."  What  was 
the  result?  He  grew  like  a  lily.  Indeed, 
men  love  to  call  Him  the  lily  of  the  valley, 
the  fairest  of  ten  thousand,  the  one  alto- 
gether lovely.  Simply  by  doing  what  God 
wanted  him  to  do,  by  eating  every  day  the 
food  which  His  Heavenly  Father  bounti- 
fully supplied,  he  grew  into  a  lovely  flower 
whose  perfume  has  filled  all  the  world,  into 
a  mighty  King  of  whose  government  there 
shall  be  no  end. 

"  And  the  child  grew."  That  is  what  we 
want  you  all  to  do.  We  do  not  want  you  to 
work.  We  do  not  ask  you  to  be  men  and 
women  just  yet.  We  do  not  want  you  to 
think  or  speak  or  act  like  grown  folks.  We 
want  you  to  be  children,  that  is,  we  want 
[43] 


HOW  TO   GROW 

you  to  grow.    We  are  interested  in  your 
growth,  and  so,  also,  is  God.     Did  you  ever 
wonder  why  your  body  grows  so  slowly? 
A  colt  grows  faster  than  a  boy,  a  calf  grows 
faster  than  a  girl,  but  that  is  because  colt 
and  calf  are  animals  and  you  are  immor- 
tal beings.     God  holds  your  body  back  in 
order  that  your  mind  may  have  a  chance  to 
grow.    Wonderful     changes     are     taking 
place  in  your  brain.     God  is  perfecting  a 
wonderful  instrument  on  which  you  are  to 
play  all  the  grand  music  of  life.     He  keeps 
you  a  child  as  long  as  he  can,  in  order  that 
the  foundation  work  inside  of  you  may  be 
completed.    He  wants  you  to  increase  in  all 
beautiful    affections.     He    wants    you    to 
abound  in  all  lovely  virtues  and  graces.    He 
wants  you  to  grow  in  the  stature  and  glory 
of  your  spirit.     He  lengthens  the  years  of 
youth  because  you  are  his  children,  and 
heirs  of  immortality.     Things  that  grow 
[44] 


HOW  TO  GROW 

fast  die  soon.  A  flower  grows  rapidly  and 
fades  early.  An  oak  grows  slowly,  but  lives 
a  century.  Boys  and  girls  grow  slowly  be- 
cause they  are  children  of  the  Highest, 
and,  like  him,  are  to  live  forever  and  ever. 
Grow,  then,  both  in  body  and  in  spirit. 
May  it  be  the  ambition  of  your  life  to 
grow.  May  you  grow  up  into  Him  in  all 
things  who  is  the  head  of  the  church.  May 
you  grow  in  grace,  and  in  the  knowledge  of 
our  Lord  and  Saviour  Jesus  Christ. 


[45] 


Ill 

THE    DUTY    OF    ASKING 
QUESTIONS 

"  Hearing  them  and  asking  them  ques- 
tions." LUKE  2:46. 
Preached  Sunday  Morning 
May    n,  1902 


THE   DUTY  OF  ASKING 
QUESTIONS 

A  YEAR  ago  I  spoke  to  you  about 
the  secret  of  growth:  let  me  talk 
to  you  this  morning  on  the  duty  of 
asking  questions. 

Of  course  you  have  all  asked  questions. 
It  is  the  habit  of  boys  and  girls.  A  boy 
who  has  a  tongue  is  sure  to  ask  questions 
not  a  few,  and  if  he  had  no  tongue  he  would 
ask  questions  with  his  eyes  or  face  or  fingers. 
A  child  would  not  be  a  child  if  it  never 
asked  a  question. 

But  I  wonder  how  many  of  you  have  ever 
looked  upon  the  work  of  asking  questions  as 
your  business.  Indeed  it  is  the  only  busi- 
ness which  you  have.  The  boys  are  not  old 
enough  to  be  mechanics,  merchants  or 
lawyers,  and  the  girls  are  too  young  to  be 
[49] 


DUTY  OF  ASKING  QUESTIONS 

trained  nurses,  dressmakers  or  housekeep- 
ers. You  cannot  enter  just  now  any  of  the 
businesses  which  belong  to  grown  people, 
but  you  have  a  business  of  your  own,  and 
that  is  the  business  of  asking  questions. 

This  business  has  been  given  to  you  by 
God.  You  are  never  so  well  employed  as 
you  are  when  you  are  asking  questions. 
Jesus,  you  remember,  one  day  went  to 
Jerusalem  to  attend  a  religious  festival  with 
his  father  and  mother.  It  was  a  great  day 
in  his  life.  When  the  time  arrived  to  re- 
turn home  the  boy  Jesus  was  not  ready  to  go. 
He  was  not  able  to  walk  all  the  way  from 
Jerusalem  to  Nazareth  because  he  carried 
on  his  mind  such  a  bundle  of  unanswered 
questions.  And  so  instead  of  turning  his 
face  toward  Nazareth  he  lingered  behind 
in  the  temple.  His  parents  started  off 
without  him  and  did  not  notice  his  disap- 
pearance for  several  hours.  Returning  to 
[5o] 


DUTY  OF  ASKING  QUESTIONS 

the  city  they  looked  for  him  here  and  there 
but  did  not  find  him.  At  last  on  the  third 
day  they  found  him  among  the  Doctors  in 
the  temple  hearing  them  and  asking  them 
questions.  When  his  mother  asked  him 
why  he  had  stayed  behind,  his  reply  was: 
"Wist  ye  not  that  I  must  be  about  my 
father's  business?"  Now  Jesus  was  the 
ideal  boy  of  all  the  world.  If  for  him  to 
ask  questions  was  to  be  about  his  father's 
business,  you  may  be  quite  sure  that  in  ask- 
ing questions  you  are  doing  what  your 
Heavenly  Father  would  have  you  do. 

Because  Jesus  asked  questions  he  grew. 
The  mind  grows  by  feeding  on  the  material 
which  questions  gather  and  bring  in.  He 
waxed  strong  in  spirit.  The  soul  that 
comes  in  contact  with  other  souls  in  an  ef- 
fort to  obtain  their  treasures,  is  certain  to 
increase  in  strength.  He  became  filled 
with  wisdom,  so  full  he  was  that  he  became 


DUTY  OP  ASKING  QUESTIONS 

the  wonder  of  the  town.  When  he  had 
passed  his  thirtieth  birthday  he  spoke  one 
day  in  the  synagogue  in  Nazareth.  The 
people  listened  to  him  in  astonishment. 
"  Whence  hath  this  man  this  wisdom,"  they 
said  to  one  another,  and  then  went  on  to 
ask,  "  Is  not  this  the  carpenter's  son?  " — just 
as  much  as  to  say,  a  boy  brought  up  in  a 
carpenter's  shop  cannot  know  enough  to 
talk  in  church!  Poor,  mistaken  people, 
they  did  not  know  that  a  boy  can  learn  any- 
where, in  a  shop,  on  a  farm,  in  a  coal  mine, 
on  the  streets  selling  papers  or  blacking 
boots,  provided  only  that  he  is  willing  to 
listen  and  ask  questions. 

In  developing  this  faculty  for  asking 
questions  Jesus  fitted  himself  for  his  future 
work.  He  became  the  expert  question- 
asker  of  all  time.  He  never  could  have 
succeeded  as  he  did,  had  he  not  had  a  genius 
for  asking  questions.  It  was  his  custom  to 
[52] 


DUTY  OF  ASKING  QUESTIONS 

draw  people  to  him  by  asking  them  a  ques- 
tion. When  he  heard  the  footsteps  of  two 
bashful  young  men  behind  him  walking 
along  the  river  bank,  he  broke  the  ice  and 
made  it  easy  for  them  to  speak  to  him  by 
asking,  "What  seek  ye?"  One  day,  while 
on  his  way  through  Samaria,  he  sat  down  on 
the  curbing  of  Jacob's  well,  and  while  rest- 
ing there  a  poor,  degraded  woman  came  to 
draw  a  jug  of  water.  She  was  separated 
from  him  by  thick,  high  walls  of  ignorance 
and  prejudice,  but  he  pushed  the  walls  all 
over  with  a  -gentle  question,  "Will  you 
please  give  me  a  drink  of  water?" 

On  one  occasion  he  was  passing  through 
a  crowded  street,  and  suddenly  he  ex- 
claimed, "Who  touched  me?"  He  asked 
the  question  to  encourage  a  timid-hearted 
woman  who  had  reached  forth  her  finger  to 
touch  his  garment  in  the  throng.  He  drew 
his  own  disciples  ever  closer  to  him  by 
[53] 


DUTY  OF  ASKING  QUESTIONS 

affectionate  inquiries.  "  Whom  say  ye  that 
I  am?"  "Are  ye  able  to  drink  of  this 
cup?"  It  was  in  this  way  that  he  secured 
confessions  from  his  chosen  friends,  which 
held  them  as  with  hoops  of  steel. 

And  then  he  educated  men,  and  de- 
veloped in  them  new  life  by  pricking  them 
with  questions.  "What  think  ye?" — that 
was  one  of  his  favorite  interrogations. 
With  Jesus  standing  before  a  man  with  such 
a  question  on  his  lips  the  man  was  com- 
pelled to  think.  Another  favorite  question 
was,  "  Have  ye  not  read?  "  If  they  had  not 
read  before  they  certainly  would  begin  to 
read  forthwith.  If  he  found  people  weak 
and  hopeless  and  nearly  dead,  he  was  almost 
certain  to  pierce  them  with  some  such  ques- 
tion as,  "  What  wilt  thou  that  I  should  do 
unto  thee?  "  Our  Lord  taught  men  how  to 
live  by  asking  them  questions. 

Time  and  again  he  protected  himself, 
[54] 


DUTY  OF  ASKING  QUESTIONS 

from  his  enemies  by  means  of  questions. 
He  was  always  in  a  lion's  den  and  the  only 
club  which  it  was  possible  for  him  to  use 
was  a  question.  The  Pharisees  and  Sad- 
ducees  and  Scribes  and  other  big  folks  in 
Jerusalem  did  not  like  him,  and  they  used 
to  stand  round  him  like  so  many  hyenas, 
licking  their  jaws,  and  eager  to  eat  him  up ; 
but  when  he  wanted  to  make  them  run,  all 
that  he  had  to  do  was  to  say,  "  Let  me  ask 
you  one  question."  One  question  was 
enough  to  rout  the  whole  of  them. 

One  day  all  his  enemies  got  together  in  a 
corner  and  framed  a  lot  of  questions  which 
they  felt  certain  would  bring  him  to  de- 
struction. Jesus  listened  to  them  and  an- 
swered them  one  after  another,  and  then 
proceeded  to  ask  some  questions  of  his  own. 
The  result  was  that  when  evening  came  he 
was  complete  master  of  the  field.  This  is 
the  way  St.  Matthew  relates  the  result  of 
[55] 


DUTY  OF   ASKING   QUESTIONS 

the  battle: — "No  man  was  able  to  answer 
him  a  word,  neither  durst  any  man  from 
that  day  forth  ask  him  any  more  questions." 
Why  not?  Because  they  were  afraid  he 
would  ask  them  another  question. 

It  was  with  questions  that  Jesus  punished 
people  when  they  did  what  it  was  not  right 
for  them  to  do.  He  could  hold  men  back 
sometimes  from  doing  wrong  simply  by 
asking  a  question.  One  day  his  disciples 
were  on  the  point  of  running  away.  Every- 
body else  had  gone,  and  they  all  looked  so 
sad  and  frightened  that  Jesus  supposed  they 
were  going  too.  And  so  he  said,  "  Would 
ye  also  go  away?  "  Right  in  their  midst  he 
reared  that  personal  question,  and  what 
could  they  do?  Simon  Peter  felt  so 
ashamed  that  he  replied  with  great  earnest- 
ness: "No,  indeed!"  I  do  not  know  what 
Peter  might  have  done  had  not  Jesus  asked 
him  that  question. 

[56] 


DUTY  OF  ASKING  QUESTIONS 
On  the  night  of  his  betrayal  Jesus  took 
three  of  his  disciples  into  the  Garden  of 
Gethsemane  and  asked  them  to  watch  while 
he  went  away  deeper  into  the  garden  to 
pray.  When  he  returned  he  found  them 
all  sleeping  and  this  was  their  punishment, 
"  Could  ye  not  watch  with  me  one  hour?" 
That  went  through  them  like  a  dagger.  It 
brought  the  blood.  One  reason  why  they 
ran  away  as  soon  as  they  got  outside  of  the 
gate  was  that  they  were  so  ashamed  of  not 
having  been  able  to  keep  awake  even  one 
hour.  But  the  most  terrible  question  which 
Jesus  ever  asked  was  the  one  he  asked  Judas 
when  the  traitor  stepped  out  to  betray  him. 
"  Judas,  betrayest  thou  the  Son  of  Man  with 
a  kiss?"  O  how  that  question  hurt!  It 
drove  Judas  to  suicide.  He  could  not  live 
with  that  question  sticking  in  him. 

And,  boys  and  girls,  do  you  know  that  I 
am  afraid  of  Jesus'  questions?     Suppose  he 
[57J 


DUTY  OF  ASKING  QUESTIONS 

says  to  me  when  I  meet  him  on  the  other 
side,  "Did  you  do  all  you  could  for  me 
while  you  were  the  Pastor  of  Broadway 
Tabernacle  in  New  York  City?"  What 
shall  I  say?  And  what  will  you  say  when 
you  meet  him  by  and  by,  if  he  asks  you, 
"  Did  you  do  all  you  could  for  me  while 
you  were  living  on  the  earth?" 

The  questions  which  Jesus  asked  2000 
years  ago  are  living  still.  They  vibrate  in 
the  atmosphere  and  we  have  no  broom  to 
sweep  them  away.  They  are  in  the  fiber  of 
the  mind,  sticking  there  like  so  many  burrs, 
and  we  cannot  shake  them  out.  "  Is  not  a 
man  better  than  a  sheep?"  That  will 
sound  in  the  world's  ear  forever.  Let  me 
tell  you  something  which  always  makes  me 
think  of  Jesus'  question.  Whenever  a  horse 
falls  in  one  of  our  streets  several  men  rush 
at  once  to  its  assistance.  It  is  beautiful  to 
see  them  run.  No  matter  how  great  a  hurry 
[58] 


DUTY  OF  ASKING  QUESTIONS 

they  are  in,  they  will  stop  because  a  horse  is 
down.  They  will  clamber  down  out  of 
their  big  wagons  and  leave  their  teams 
standing  in  the  street  in  order  to  get  the 
horse  of  a  brother  driver  on  his  feet.  One 
man  strokes  the  poor  horse's  nose  and  speaks 
encouragingly  to  it,  another  unbuckles  the 
harness,  others  push  back  the  wagon  in  or- 
der that  the  unfortunate  animal  may  have 
a  chance,  and  by  means  of  all  this  help  the 
horse,  unless  a  leg  is  broken,  struggles  to 
his  feet  again  and  the  crowd  goes  on  its 
way  rejoicing. 

iBut  I  have  seen  a  man  fall  in  the  street, 
not  because  the  pavement  was  slippery,  but 
because  the  man  had  put  an  enemy  into  his 
mouth  to  steal  away  his  brains.  And  when 
he  fell  I  have  seen  boys  laugh,  and  grown- 
up men  pass  by  on  the  other  side  with  a 
look  of  scorn;  and  it  is  at  such  a  time  as 
this  that  I  think  of  Jesus'  words :  "  Is  not  a 
[59] 


DUTY  OF  ASKING  QUESTIONS 
man  better  than  an  animal?"  There  are 
other  questions  which  still  haunt  the  world. 
"Ten  were  cleansed,  and  where  are  the 
nine?"  One  is  reminded  of  that  question 
every  time  the  church  invites  men  to  thank 
God  for  his  goodness  and  his  wonderful 
works  to  us  all.  "What  shall  it  profit  a 
man  if  he  shall  gain  the  whole  world  and 
lose  his  own  soul?"  That  is  a  question 
from  which  we  cannot  get  away.  Only  this 
last  week  I  suspect  that  more  than  one  man 
in  the  fever  and  strain  of  New  York  life 
said  to  himself:  "What  shall  it  profit  a 
man?" 

The  point  of  all  this  is  that  Jesus  is  the 
supreme  question-asker  of  the  world,  and 
that  he  would  never  have  been  so  wise  a 
man,  had  he  not  mastered  the  art  of  asking 
questions  when  a  boy. 

The  world  progresses  just  as  men  are 
willing  to  ask  questions.     The  golden  ages 
[60] 


DUTY  OF  ASKING  QUESTIONS 
were  all  made  golden  by  minds  which 
had  questions  in  them  and  the  dark  ages 
have  been  rendered  dark  by  minds  which 
had  no  desire  to  know.  The  world  has 
made  more  material  progress  within  the 
last  century  than  it  made  during  the  preced- 
ing 5000  years,  and  all  because  the  men  of 
the  last  century  have  been  such  experts  in 
asking  questions.  When  Jesus  said,  "  Ex- 
cept ye  become  as  little  children  ye  cannot 
enter  the  kingdom  of  heaven,"  he  meant 
that  men  must  ask  questions  if  they  wish  to 
advance;  but  it  was  not  till  1600  years  later 
that  an  Englishman  by  the  name  of  Bacon 
caught  the  meaning  of  Jesus'  words.  The 
scientists  had  always  worked  out  their 
theories  and  expected  Nature  to  obey  them. 
Bacon  saw  that  if  men  were  ever  to  enter 
the  kingdom  of  science  they  must  listen  to 
Nature  and  ask  her  questions. 
That  is  what  science  has  been  doing  for 
[61] 


DUTY    OF    ASKING    QUESTIONS 

the  last  300  years,  and  that  is  the  secret  of 
her  marvelous  victories.  The  astronomers 
used  to  draw  maps  of  the  sky  and  frame 
theories  as  to  how  the  stars  ought  to  behave. 
So  long  as  they  did  this  astronomy  made 
slight  progress.  By  and  by  astronomers 
began  to  listen  to  the  heavens  and  to  ask 
them  questions.  One  man  said:  "  O  Sun, 
where  do  you  get  your  heat?  "  Another 
one  said :  "  O  Moon,  why  do  you  fall  away 
from  your  orbit?"  Another  one  asked: 
"  O  Jupiter,  what  cuts  off  your  light?  "  Still 
another  said :  "  O  Uranus,  why  do  you 
waver  and  lose  so  much  time?  "  As  soon 
as  men  began  to  ask  questions,  the  heavens 
began  to  rain  down  answers.  The  result  is 
modern  astronomy. 

The  attitude  of  the  scientist  of  to-day  is 

illustrated  by  Galileo.    When  a  young  man 

of   nineteen   he   went   one   day   into   the 

Cathedral  of  Pisa  and  saw  that  the  big 

[62] 


DUTY    OF    ASKING    QUESTIONS 

bronze  lamp  suspended  from  the  lofty  ceil- 
ing was  slowly  swinging.  No  one  else  had 
noticed  that  fact  all  that  day.  Galileo  sat 
down  and  watched  the  lamp.  He  asked  it 
questions,  and  the  lamp,  pleased  to  be  thus 
noticed,  courteously  replied.  The  answers 
of  that  bronze  lamp  have  been  published  in 
all  the  text  books  of  all  civilized  lands,  and 
before  Galileo  died  he  built  one  of  the  an- 
swers into  an  astronomical  clock.  The  uni- 
verse is  filled  with  swinging  lamps,  and  all 
that  the  scientists  have  to  do  is  to  look  and 
listen,  and  ask  questions. 

An  interrogation  point  lies  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  age  of  modern  invention.  Men 
were  never  able  to  invent  anything  until 
they  began  to  ask  questions.  Take  this  one 
illustration.  Years  ago,  in  a  little  town 
in  Scotland,  there  lived  a  boy  whose  mother 
called  him  Jimmy  Watt.  Jimmy  was  a 
delicate  child  and  he  could  not  romp  and 
[63] 


DUTY    OF    ASKING    QUESTIONS 

run  like  other  boys,  but  he  was  strong 
enough  to  ask  questions.  He  was  in  the 
habit  of  lying  on  the  floor  in  front  of  the 
fire  and  listening  to  the  teakettle  sing.  One 
day  he  noticed  that  the  steam  played  queer 
capers  with  the  teakettle  lid,  and  he  began 
to  ask  the  kettle  a  string  of  questions.  The 
kettle  began  it  and  Jimmy  ended  it.  What 
the  kettle  told  the  boy  was  afterward  built 
into  a  steam  engine,  and  what  all  is  yet  to 
come  out  of  that  teakettle  it  is  impossible  to 
say.  The  steam  engine  brought  the  rail- 
road, the  railroad  brought  the  factory,  the 
factory  built  the  city,  and  the  city  has  given 
us  what  we  call  civilization — all  this  has 
flowed  out  of  a  question  asked  by  a  little 
sickly  boy. 

Therefore,  boys  and  girls,  never  hesitate 
to  ask  questions.  Cultivate  the  art  of  doing 
it  and  begin  at  once. 

Question  your  parents.  God  has  or- 
[64] 


DUTY    OF    ASKING    QUESTIONS 

dained  them  for  the  work  of  answering  the 
questions  which  you  may  ask.  But  let  me 
give  you  two  bits  of  advice.  Always  listen 
before  you  ask.  That  is  the  order  which 
Jesus  followed.  He  did  not  ask  the  Doc- 
tors questions  until  he  had  heard  what  they 
had  to  say.  It  is  foolish  to  ask  questions 
before  one  has  listened.  Many  a  boy  would 
ask  fewer  questions  and  the  questions  asked 
would  be  wiser  than  they  are,  if  he  would 
first  pay  attention  to  what  is  being  said.  If 
you  draw  your  questions  out  of  your  own 
ignorance  they  are  almost  certain  to  be  use- 
less, whereas  if  you  draw  them  from  the 
things  which  have  been  told  you  by  your 
parents  or  your  teachers  they  are  almost 
certain  to  be  sensible  and  wholesome. 

Do  not  expect  an  answer  to  all  your  ques- 
tions before   sunset.     Any  child   can   ask 
questions  which  no  one  can  answer,  and 
every    child    often    asks    questions   which 
[65] 


DUTY    OF    ASKING    QUESTIONS 

ought  not  to  be  answered  at  once.  Do  not 
expect  answers  to  all  your  questions  im- 
mediately. It  would  be  no  fun  to  live  if  all 
your  questions  could  be  answered  in  a  min- 
ute. Some  of  them  will  be  answered  to- 
morrow, and  some  the  day  after,  and  others 
still  later.  In  asking  questions  you  must 
learn  to  wait. 

Question  your  teachers.  That  is  what 
they  are  for.  Carry  your  perplexities  to 
your  Sunday  School  teacher,  and  to  your 
day  school  teacher,  and  to  your  pulpit 
teacher.  I  am  always  glad  to  answer  boys 
and  girls.  When  I  was  young  I  asked  a  lot 
of  questions,  and  the  answers  to  many  of 
them  are  tucked  away  in  the  pigeon  holes  of 
my  mind.  You  may  have  some  of  these  an- 
swers if  you  ask  for  them. 

There  are  two  great  books  which  you 
ought  to  question  every  day.  One  of  these 
is  the  Bible.  You  ought  never  to  read  a 
[66] 


DUTY    OF    ASKING    QUESTIONS 

page  of  the  big  book  without  asking  some 
such  question  as  why,  where,  when,  how,  or 
of  what  value  is  this  to  me?  The  Bible  is 
full  of  wisdom,  but  you  cannot  get  it  unless 
you  ask  questions. 

The  other  book  which  ought  to  be 
quizzed  every  day  is  the  Dictionary.  A 
dictionary  ought  to  lie  at  the  center  of  every 
home,  and  boys  and  girls  ought  to  go  to  it 
more  frequently  than  to  the  dinner  table. 
Whenever  you  meet  a  word  walking  up  ,and 
down  the  avenues  of  public  speech  to  which 
you  have  not  been  introduced,  just  take  it 
by  the  throat  and  lead  it  to  the  dictionary 
that  you  may  see  just  who  and  what  it  is. 
Downtown  there  is  a  room  known  as  the 
"  Rogues'  Gallery."  In  that  room  are  pre- 
served the  photographs  of  a  host  of  bad  men 
and  bad  women,  with  a  brief  history  of  their 
lives.  Whenever  a  criminal  is  caught  the 
officers  go  to  the  Rogues'  Gallery  to  find  out 
[67] 


DUTY  OF  ASKING  QUESTIONS 
just  who  the  culprit  is  and  how  many  bad 
things  he  has  been  guilty  of,  in  different 
sections  of  the  land. 

Now  a  printed  word  is  the  photograph 
of  a  spoken  word.  A  dictionary  is  a  gallery 
filled  with  the  photographs  of  words.  The 
good  are  there  and  so  also  are  the  bad,  and 
whenever  you  meet  an  unknown  word  it  is 
your  duty  to  take  it  at  once  to  the  dictionary 
that  you  may  find  out  where  the  word  came 
from,  what  it  means,  and  what  kind  of  work 
it  has  been  doing  in  the  world.  If  you  will 
form  at  once  the  habit  of  consulting  the  dic- 
tionary every  day,  and  carry  the  habit  with 
you  through  the  years,  you  will  grow  in 
strength  and  in  wisdom  all  the  time.  It  is 
a  beautiful  feature  of  a  dictionary  that  it 
never  loses  its  patience.  You  can  question 
it  all  day  long  and  it  will  be  as  gentle  and 
good-natured  at  evening  as  it  was  in  the 
morning.  It  can  never  be  provoked.  It 
[68] 


DUTY  OF  ASKING  QUESTIONS 
gives  its  answers  without  a  frown.  I  can- 
not say  so  much  of  all  parents  and  teachers. 

Go  to  Nature  with  earnest  questionings. 
Watch  her  closely  and  ask  her  the  reasons 
for  her  actions.  Never  look  at  the  sky  or 
the  ocean  without  throwing  a  question  at  it. 
Never  walk  through  the  woods  and  listen  to 
the  singing  of  birds  or  the  hum  of  insects 
without  allowing  questions  to  form  them- 
selves in  your  mind.  Nature  loves  to  be 
questioned.  She  delights  to  give  answers  to 
those  who  most  diligently  inquire  of  her. 
If  you  will  listen  to  her  and  then  ask  her 
questions  she  may  be  as  kind  to  you  as  she 
was  to  Agassiz  and  sing  to  you  "  night  and 
day  the  rhymes  of  the  universe,"  and  if  ever 
the  way  seems  long  or  your  heart  begins  to 
fail  "  she  will  sing  you  a  more  wonderful 
song  or  tell  you  a  more  wonderful  tale." 

Carry  your  questions  to  God.     Does  he 
not  say  "Ask."     If  you  ask  for  bread  he 
[69] 


DUTY  OF  ASKING  QUESTIONS 
will  surely  not  give  you  a  stone.  We  owe 
a  debt  of  gratitude  to  the  disciples  because 
they  asked  Jesus  so  many  questions.  Some 
of  the  most  beautiful  things  in  the  Gospels 
were  drawn  from  him  by  questions.  I  love 
Simon  Peter  because  he  was  so  inquisi- 
tive. Would  that  he  had  asked  more 
questions  than  he  did  I  Never  hesitate  to 
carry  your  questions  to  the  Heavenly 
Father.  He  is  interested  in  your  problems 
and  your  difficulties  and  will  give  you  all 
the  light  which  it  is  best  and  possible  for 
you  to  have.  Of  course  he  will  not  an- 
swer all  your  questions  just  now,  but  they 
will  all  be  answered  some  day.  Like  our 
earthly  parents  he  is  obliged  to  postpone 
many  of  his  answers  until  such  times  as  we 
may  be  able  to  bear  them.  One  of  the  joys 
of  heaven  will  be  getting  answers  to  ques- 
tions which  we  have  asked  him  here  on 
earth.  But  question  him.  Asking  ques- 
[7o] 


DUTY    OF    ASKING    QUESTIONS 

tions  is  a  part  of  worship.  Follow  the 
example  of  the  Psalmist,  with  whose  words 
I  bring  my  sermon  to  a  close: 

"  One  thing  have  I  desired  of  the  Lord, 
that  I  will  seek  after;  that  I  may  dwell  in 
the  house  of  the  Lord  all  the  days  of  my 
life,  to  behold  the  beauty  of  the  Lord,  and 
to  inquire  in  his  temple." 


IV 

THE     BEAUTY    OF 
OBEDIENCE 

"And    was    subject    unto    them." 

LUKE  2:  51. 

Preached  Sunday  Morning 
May   10,   1903 


THE  BEAUTY  OF  OBEDIENCE 

AND  was  subject  unto  them."  That 
is  the  way  it  runs  in  our  King 
James'  Bible,  but  William  Tyndale, 
who  translated  the  Gospel  of  Luke  eighty- 
five  years  before  King  James  brought  out 
his  new  Bible,  wrote  it  thus — "  He  was 
obedient  to  them."  Over  two  hundred 
years  before  Tyndale  lived,  John  Wyclif 
had  translated  Luke's  words,  "  and  was  sub- 
ject to  them"  and  the  scholars  of  King 
James  preferred  to  follow  Wyclif  rather 
than  Tyndale,  using  subject  instead  of  obe- 
dient, although  both  words  mean  almost 
the  same  thing. 

To  be  obedient  is  to  be  subject,  and  to  be 

subject  is  what?     If  you  take  hold  of  the 

word  subject  at  both  ends  and  pull  hard 

you  will  pull  it  in  two.     In  one  hand  you 

[75] 


THE  BEAUTY  OF  OBEDIENCE 
will  have  a  little  word  "  sub,"  which  every- 
body knows  means  under.  New  Yorkers 
call  their  tunnel  "  subway,"  because  it  runs 
under  all  the  other  ways  on  Manhattan 
Island.  In  the  other  hand  you  will  have  a 
piece  of  a  Latin  word  which  means  to  place 
or  lay  or  throw  or  bring.  So  that  when 
Luke  says  Jesus  was  subject  to  his  parents, 
he  means  that  Jesus  laid  himself  under 
their  authority  and  dominion  and  control. 
Now  if  you  should  look  for  this  sentence 
in  the  Greek  Testament  you  would  find  in 
place  of  the  word  "  subject"  a  large,  plump 
word  containing  thirteen  letters,  and  if  you 
should  ask  me  why  so  long  a  word  in  Greek 
is  necessary  when  a  short  word  is  used  in 
English,  I  should  answer  that  the  Greek 
word  is  large  because  it  has  more  meaning 
in  it  than  our  little  English  word  contains. 
The  Greek  word  tells  us  that  Jesus  was 
habitually  subject,  he  was  subject  right 
[76] 


THE  BEAUTY  OF  OBEDIENCE 
along,  all  the  time,  without  ceasing.  His 
subjection  was  not  spasmodic  or  intermittent 
or  occasional,  but  it  was  a  continuous  and 
settled  habit  of  his  life.  From  day  to  day 
and  from  year  to  year  he  laid  himself  down 
under  the  dominion  of  his  parents.  Joseph 
is  King,  Mary  is  Queen,  their  home  is  a 
Kingdom  and  in  this  kingdom  the  boy  Jesus 
is  a  subject. 

He  was  subject.  There  is  a  lesson  in  the 
pronoun  "  He."  Every  boy  thinks  that  he 
is  a  wonderful  boy,  and  in  thinking  this 
every  boy  is  right.  God  never  made  a  boy 
who  was  not  wonderful.  And  every  boy 
thinks  he  is  an  exceptional  boy,  and  this  also 
is  right,  for  no  boy  is  like  any  other  boy  who 
ever  was  or  ever  will  be.  And  every  boy 
thinks  he  knows  some  things  better  than  his 
parents,  and  here  again  the  boy  is  not  mis- 
taken, for  a  boy  knows  things  about  his  own 
thoughts  and  feelings  and  his  companions 
[77] 


THE  BEAUTY  OF  OBEDIENCE 
which  his  parents  do  not  know.  And  be- 
cause a  boy  is  so  wonderful  and  exceptional 
and  knowing,  he  sometimes  feels  that  it  is 
beneath  his  dignity  to  lay  himself  down  un- 
der the  dominion  of  his  parents'  will. 
There  are  times,  he  thinks,  when  obedience 
ceases  to  be  a  virtue,  and  when  he  has  a 
right  to  do  as  he  wills  or  wishes.  But  this 
evidently  is  a  mistake. 

Jesus  was  a  wonderful  boy,  and  a  boy 
quite  exceptional,  and  he  knew  many  things 
which  his  parents  did  not  know.  They  did 
not  even  know  that  at  the  age  of  twelve  he 
must  be  about  his  Father's  business,  and  yet 
this  wonderful  boy  with  all  his  knowledge 
laid  himself  down  beneath  his  parents'  will. 
This  is  what  the  model  boy  does,  and  there- 
fore if  any  other  boy  does  something  differ- 
ent he  is  not  the  kind  of  boy  which  God 
would  have  him  be. 

He  was  subject  unto  them.     Mark  the 
[78] 


THE   BEAUTY  OF  OBEDIENCE 

pronoun  "  them,"  for  it  is  easy  to  overlook 
it.  The  Bible  is  always  particular  when- 
ever it  speaks  of  children's  duties  to  bring 
in  both  parents.  It  does  this  from  the  be- 
ginning. Is  it  not  written  in  the  Deca- 
logue: "Honor  thy  father  and  thy 
mother"?  When  Moses  laid  down  regula- 
tions for  the  government  of  the  people  this 
was  one  of  the  severest  of  his  laws:  "  If  a 
man  have  a  stubborn  and  rebellious  son, 
which  will  not  obey  the  voice  of  his  father, 
or  the  voice  of  his  mother,  all  the  men  of 
his  city  shall  stone  him  with  stones  that  he 
die." 

When  Paul  writes  to  the  children  of  Asia 
Minor  he  says,  "  Children  obey  your  par- 
ents," and  that  letter  "  s  "  is  one  of  the  most 
important  letters  in  the  entire  Bible.  I 
have  read  of  boys  who  evidently  did  not 
know  the  "  s  "  is  there.  They  made  a  dis- 
tinction between  their  father  and  their 
[79] 


THE  BEAUTY  OF  OBEDIENCE 
mother,  placing  the  former  on  a  higher 
pedestal  than  the  latter.  Their  ears  were 
attentive  to  their  father's  voice,  but  strange 
to  say  they  could  not  hear  their  mother. 
They  said  to  themselves — "  She  is  nothing 
but  a  woman,  and  a  woman  is  not  to  be 
obeyed."  But  all  such  boys  are  unlike  the 
boy  Jesus.  Jesus  made  Joseph  king  and 
Mary  queen,  and  he  was  subject  to  both  of 
them.  When  they  spoke  he  listened  and 
when  they  commanded  he  obeyed. 

And  if  a  boy  does  not  obey  both  his 
mother  and  his  father  there  is  something 
wrong  with  him.  The  model  boy  acted  in 
no  such  manner  and  the  boy  who  will  not 
hearken  to  his  mother  is  not  the  kind  of 
boy  which  God  would  have  him  be.  In- 
deed, I  am  inclined  to  think  that  Jesus' 
obedience  to  his  mother  was  even  swifter 
and  more  joyous  than  his  obedience  to  his 
father,  for  I  have  no  doubt  that  Jesus  was 
[80] 


THE   BEAUTY  OF  OBEDIENCE 
ever  gallant,  and  that  his  heart  was  full  of 
chivalry.     To  be  chivalrous  is  to  have  high 
respect  for  woman. 

In  the  middle  ages  the  world  was  dark, 
and  lawlessness  abounded  in  many  lands. 
There  were  bad  and  reckless  men  who  had 
no  regard  for  weakness,  and  because  woman 
was  defenceless  she  was  often  the  victim  of 
their  strength.  But  the  hearts  of  men  were 
not  wholly  brutal,  and  there  sprang  up  a 
company  of  heroes  known  as  knights,  sworn 
to  protect  and  reverence  woman.  To  do 
this  it  was  necessary  to  dress  in  armor  and 
carry  a  lance  and  other  weapons,  and  again 
and  again  the  knights  were  obliged  to 
battle,  in  order  that  women  might  not  be 
abused.  So  true  and  courageous  were 
many  of  these  knights  that  poets  and  novel- 
ists and  historians  have  loved  to  write  about 
them  even  to  the  present  day. 

Now  every  right-minded  boy  ought  to  be 
[81] 


THE  BEAUTY  OF  OBEDIENCE 

a  knight,  and  when  barbarian  boys  speak 
disrespectfully  of  women,  and  refuse  to  obey 
their  own  mother,  the  boy  with  the  chival- 
rous heart  ought  to  stand  up  in  her  defense, 
and  say  with  pride,  "  I  am  not  ashamed  to 
obey  my  mother,  for  to  me  she  is  the  queen 
of  all  the  women  on  the  earth!"  That  is 
the  way  the  boy  Jesus  acted  toward  his 
mother,  and  when  he  became  a  man  his 
mother  was  so  proud  of  him  and  had  such 
boundless  confidence  in  his  goodness  that 
she  said  to  people  wherever  she  went, 
"  Whatsoever  he  saith  unto  you  do  it  I "  A 
boy  who  obeys  his  mother  can  be  trusted 
when  he  is  a  man. 

He  went  down  with  them.  It  was  not 
an  easy  thing  to  do.  It  would  have  been 
far  more  pleasant  to  stay  in  Jerusalem. 
For  Jerusalem  was  the  capital  of  the 
Nation.  It  was  filled  with  glorious  things 
and  interesting  people.  It  had  great 
[82] 


THE  BEAUTY  OF  OBEDIENCE 

market  places  and  famous  pools  and  splen- 
did palaces  and  the  great  temple  built  by 
Herod  with  its  gold  and  marble  and  pre- 
cious stones,  with  its  candlesticks  and  altar 
and  the  holy  of  holies.  And  it  was  in 
Jerusalem  that  all  the  big  people  lived,  the 
scholars  and  orators  and  rulers,  the  men 
whose  very  shadow  was  an  inspiration. 

And  what  was  there  in  little  Nazareth? 
Nazareth  was  only  a  tiny  country  town, 
very  slow  and  very  sleepy.  There  was  noth- 
ing going  on  in  Nazareth.  There  were  no 
lovely  buildings  there.  The  little  syna- 
gogue was  no  more  like  the  Temple  than  a 
log  cabin  is  like  the  White  House.  And 
nobody  lived  in  Nazareth,  no  scholars,  no 
soldiers,  no  rulers,  no  great  merchants,  no 
men  whom  it  was  worth  one's  while  to 
know. 

Yet  Jesus  went  down  from  Jerusalem  and 
came  to  Nazareth,  and  laid  himself  under 
[83] 


THE   BEAUTY  OF   OBEDIENCE 

the  dominion  of  a  carpenter  and  his  peasant 
wife.  How  much  more  delightful  it  would 
have  been  to  hear  wise  men  speaking  in  a 
marble  temple,  than  to  pick  up  shavings  in 
a  carpenter  shop  in  cheap  and  prosy  Naza- 
reth. But  Jesus  was  obedient,  even  when 
the  paths  of  obedience  were  not  pleasant. 

I  have  known  boys  who  have  refused  to 
come  down  from  Jerusalem  and  go  to  Naza- 
reth. They  have  seated  themselves  in  the 
temple  of  their  own  stubborn  will  and  when 
their  father  or  mother  has  said  "Come!" 
they  have  said  "I  won't!"  They  have 
settled  themselves  with  a  book,  or  they  have 
plunged  headlong  into  a  game,  or  they 
have  given  themselves  up  to  some  thing 
which  pleased  them,  and  they  have  im- 
pudently refused  to  go  to  Nazareth.  But 
no  such  children  are  like  Jesus.  I  will  tell 
you  what  they  are  like.  They  are  like  an 
animal.  An  animal  never  does  anything  it 
[84] 


THE   BEAUTY  OF  OBEDIENCE 

does  not  want  to  do  unless  it  is  driven  to  it 
An  animal  follows  its  own  inclination.  It 
takes  the  path  which  is  easiest.  Who  ever 
heard  of  an  animal  doing  of  its  own  accord 
anything  which  was  unpleasant  or  hard? 

If  you  are  like  an  animal  you  will  never 
obey  unless  you  are  whipped  into  obedience. 
'But  if  you  want  to  be  like  the  model  boy 
you  will  obey  no  matter  what  it  costs.  You 
will  never  say,  Is  this  pleasant?  but,  Is  this 
right?  Not,  Do  I  want  to  do  this?  but, 
Ought  I  to  do  this?  What  difference  does 
it  make  whether  it  is  pleasant  or  not,  or 
whether  you  want  to  do  it  or  not?  Do  your 
father  and  mother  want  you  to  do  it?  If 
they  do,  then  do  it!  If  you  are  not  willing 
to  come  down  from  the  temple  in  Jerusalem 
to  the  shavings  and  sawdust  of  Nazareth, 
you  are  not  the  kind  of  boy  which  God 
would  have  every  boy  to  be. 

And  behold  the  reward!  St.  Luke  will 
[85] 


THE   BEAUTY  OF  OBEDIENCE 

not  close  his  chapter  without  telling  us  what 
it  was.  "  And  Jesus  advanced  in  wisdom 
and  stature,  and  in  favor  with  God  and 
men."  He  grew  to  be  so  strong  a  man  that 
he  has  impressed  all  succeeding  generations, 
and  although  nineteen  hundred  years  have 
passed  since  he  made  his  home  in  Palestine, 
all  men  everywhere  are  agreed  that  his  was 
the  most  beautiful  life  ever  yet  lived  upon 
this  earth. 

It  was  his  obedience  which  made  it  beau- 
tiful. He  used  to  say,  "  My  meat  is  to  do 
the  will  of  him  that  sent  me,"  "  I  do  always 
those  things  which  are  pleasing  unto  him," 
"  Not  my  will  but  thine  be  done,"  and  at  the 
end  of  life  he  could  say,  "  I  have  finished 
the  work  which  thou  gavest  me  to  do."  It 
was  the  obedience  of  Jesus  which  Paul, 
thought  was  the  climax  of  Jesus'  life  and 
the  trait  most  worthy  of  being  held  up  for 
our  imitation.  "Let  this  mind  be  in  you 
[86] 


THE  BEAUTY  OF  OBEDIENCE 

which  was  also  in  Christ  Jesus,  who  became 
obedient  unto  death,  even  the  death  of  the 
cross!" 

Of  the  virtues  out  of  which  a  noble  char- 
acter is  built,  obedience  is  the  first  and  most 
important.  It  is  the  corner-stone  of  the 
temple.  According  to  the  Bible  the  fore- 
most of  the  virtues  is  obedience,  and  the  first 
of  all  sins  is  disobedience.  Disobedience  is 
the  nest  in  which  all  other  sins  are  hatched; 
obedience  is  the  root  out  of  which  all  other 
virtues  grow.  "  As  through  the  one  man's 
disobedience  the  many  were  made  sinners, 
even  so  through  the  obedience  of  one  shall 
the  many  be  made  righteous." 

After  the  fall,  the  human  race  did  not 
make  a  successful  start  toward  God  until 
the  time  of  Abraham.  "Abraham  when 
he  was  called,  obeyed,  and  he  went  out  not 
knowing  whither  he  went."  The  greatest 
of  the  patriarchs  is  immortal  because  of  his 
[87] 


THE   BEAUTY  OF  OBEDIENCE 

obedience.  Moses,  the  greatest  of  the  Law 
givers,  was  always  saying  to  the  people :  "  If 
you  obey  God  you  shall  live,  if  you  disobey 
him  you  shall  die."  Samuel,  the  greatest 
of  the  Judges,  says  to  Saul,  the  first  of  the 
Kings:  "To  obey  is  better  than  sacrifice, 
and  to  hearken  than  the  fat  of  rams." 
Isaiah,  the  greatest  of  the  prophets,  says: 
"  If  ye  be  obedient  ye  shall  eat  the  good  of 
the  land ;  but  if  ye  refuse  and  rebel,  ye  shall 
be  devoured  with  the  sword ;  for  the  mouth 
of  Jehovah  hath  spoken  it." 

Jesus,  who  is  prophet,  lawgiver,  and 
judge  combined,  says  to  a  young  man  who 
wants  to  know  how  to  secure  eternal  life, 
"  Keep  the  commandments."  At  the  begin- 
ning of  his  public  career  Jesus  said,  "  Take 
my  yoke  upon  you,"  and  at  the  close  he  said, 
"  Ye  are  my  friends  if  ye  do  whatsoever  I 
command  you."  Everywhere  and  always 
he  declared  "  He  that  wills  to  do  God's  will 
[88] 


THE   BEAUTY  OF  OBEDIENCE 

shall  know."  That  means  that  obedience 
comes  first,  and  that  men  must  obey  in  the 
dark. 

Have  you  ever  thought  of  the  beauty  of 
obedience?  It  is  the  most  beautiful  of  all 
the  virtues.  If  you  do  not  believe  this  look 
at  an  army.  What  makes  an  army  beauti- 
ful? Not  the  gold  braid  or  the  bright  but- 
tons or  the  glittering  bayonets,  but  obedi- 
ence. An  army  is  organized  on  the  prin- 
ciple of  obedience.  Every  man  must  obey 
his  superior  and  obey  him  instantly.  If  a 
man  will  not  obey  he  is  not  a  soldier,  and 
must  be  drummed  out  of  the  regiment.  A 
good  soldier  always  obeys. 

Many  years  ago  an  English  ship  called 
the  Birkenhead  was  wrecked  at  sea.  It  was 
crowded  with  passengers,  four  hundred  of 
them  being  British  soldiers.  There  were 
boats  sufficient  only  for  the  women  and  chil- 
dren, and  there  was  nothing  for  the  soldiers 
[89] 


THE   BEAUTY  OF   OBEDIENCE 

to  do  but  to  die.  Captain  Wright  ordered 
them  on  deck.  Each  man  fell  into  his  place 
without  a  murmur,  and  there  they  stood,  si- 
lent and  magnificent,  until  the  ship  heeled 
over  and  went  down  under  them.  I  count 
that  one  of  the  most  beautiful  spectacles  to 
be  met  with  in  the  history  of  the  world. 
Tennyson  has  given  us  another  such  picture 
in  his  "  Charge  of  the  Light  Brigade." 

"  Forward,  the  Light  Brigade !  " 
Was  there  a  man  dismay'd? 
Not  tho'  the  soldier  knew 
Some  one  had  blundered; 
Theirs  not  to  make  reply, 
Theirs  not  to  reason  why, 
Theirs  but  to  do  and  die: 
Into  the  valley  of  Death 
Rode  the  six  hundred. 

Cannon  to  right  of  them, 
Cannon  to  left  of  them, 
Cannon  in  front  of  them 
[90] 


THE   BEAUTY  OF   OBEDIENCE 

Volley'd  and  thunder'd; 
Storm'd  at  with  shot  and  shell, 
Boldly  they  rode  and  well, 
Into  the  jaws  of  Death, 
Into  the  mouth  of  Hell 
Rode  the  six  hundred. 

Cannon  to  right  of  them, 
Cannon  to  left  of  them, 
Cannon  behind  them 
Volley'd  and  thunder'd; 
Storm'd  at  with  shot  and  shell, 
While  horse  and  hero  fell, 
They  that  had  fought  so  well 
Came  thro'  the  jaws  of  Death, 
Back  from  the  mouth  of  Hell, 
All  that  was  left  of  them, 
Left  of  six  hundred. 

When  can  their  glory  fade? 
O  the  wild  charge  they  made! 
All  the  world  wonder'd. 
Honor  the  charge  they  made! 
Honor  the  Light  Brigade, 
Noble  six  hundred! 

[91] 


THE  BEAUTY  OF  OBEDIENCE 
Why  noble?  Because  they  obeyed. 
Anything  so  beautiful  as  obedience  is 
valuable  above  rubies.  Who  can  express 
the  worth  of  it?  It  is  the  best  gift  which 
parents  can  possibly  give  to  their  children. 
It  is  a  part  of  education,  the  most  important 
part,  and  if  a  boy  or  girl  does  not  learn  the 
habit  of  obedience  he  or  she  is  not  educated, 
even  though  they  may  read  many  languages 
and  be  experts  in  science  and  mathematics. 
It  is  the  best  fortune  which  parents  can  be- 
queath to  their  children,  and  boys  and  girls 
who  do  not  learn  at  home  the  virtue  of 
obedience  are  unfortunate,  even  though 
their  parents  should  give  them  a  million 
dollars.  For  unless  children  learn  obedi- 
ence in  the  home,  they  are  not  likely  to  learn 
it  anywhere,  and  a  man  or  woman  who  is 
self-willed  and  incapable  of  obeying  is 
never  happy,  and  is  often  mischievous  if  not 
dangerous. 

[92] 


THE  BEAUTY  OF  OBEDIENCE 
No  one  makes  a  good  citizen  who  does 
not  obey  the  laws.  What  a  lovely  country 
this  would  be  if  all  people  were  obedient: 
no  jails,  no  prisons,  no  penitentiaries  any- 
where. And  what  a  deal  of  misery  and 
suffering  we  should  be  spared  if  all  men  and 
women  in  America  had  been  taught  when 
children  to  reverence  laws  and  been  trained 
to  habits  of  obedience.  Abhor  above 
everybody  else  the  man  who  disobeys  the 
law!  He  is  a  traitor  to  his  country  and  a 
man  to  be  afraid  of. 

If  a  rich  man  breaks  the  law,  and  joins 
with  other  rich  men  in  breaking  it,  and 
because  he  is  rich  and  mighty  sets  the  laws 
of  his  country  at  defiance,  he  ought  to  have 
his  fine  clothes  stripped  from  his  back,  and 
he  ought  to  be  dressed  in  a  striped  suit,  and 
they  ought  to  put  him  in  a  prison  and  feed 
him  on  bread  and  water,  and  make  him 
work  hard  every  day,  and  keep  him  in 
[93] 


THE   BEAUTY  OF  OBEDIENCE 

chains  until  he  expressed  a  willingness  to 
obey  the  laws.  Never  admire  or  praise  or 
respect  any  man  who  tramples  on  the  laws 
of  his  city,  state,  or  nation. 

And  if  a  poor  man  breaks  the  law  he 
too  must  be  caught  and  punished.  Justice 
must  be  measured  out  to  rich  and  poor  alike. 
And  if  the  poor  man  joins  with  other  poor 
men  to  trample  on  the  rights  of  others  and 
to  destroy  property  and  to  take  life,  then  he 
must  be  seized  immediately  and  made  to 
suffer  for  his  heinous  crime.  There  must 
be  no  delay,  and  no  excuse-making  in  deal- 
ing with  the  criminal. 

Men  who  trample  on  law,  no  matter  who 
they  are  or  what  they  want  or  how  just 
their  cause,  are  dangerous  criminals,  and 
must  be  made  to  pay  the  full  penalty  of 
their  wicked  deeds.  Our  flag  is  not  a  beau- 
tiful flag  unless  it  floats  over  the  heads  of 
law-keeping  men  and  women,  and  the  very 
[94] 


THE   BEAUTY  OF   OBEDIENCE 

foundations  of  our  Republic  are  shaken 
when  any  class  of  men,  high  or  low,  defy 
their  country's  laws. 

Nor  can  the  Christian  church  be  beauti- 
ful or  strong  unless  its  members  are  obedi- 
ent. If  they  do,  each  one  as  he  pleases,  pay- 
ing no  attention  to  the  rules  which  they 
have  promised  to  obey,  then  they  bring  dis- 
grace upon  themselves  and  scandal  on  the 
church.  Every  good  Christian  lays  him- 
self down  under  the  dominion  of  the  laws 
of  his  church.  Without  obedience,  a  beau- 
tiful home,  a  strong  government,  and  a 
church  worthy  of  Jesus  Christ  are  impos- 
sible. 

What  reward  is  offered  to  the  obedient 
soul?  Long  life,  joy,  peace,  power,  God! 
It  is  the  only  thing  for  which  the  Bible 
offers  a  reward.  It  is  the  one  thing  which 
God  everywhere  expects  and  imperatively 
demands.  The  Bible  offers  us  no  reward  for 

[95] 


THE   BEAUTY  OF   OBEDIENCE 

our  time  or  our  strength  or  our  money  or 
our  hymn  singing  or  our  church  going  or 
prayer  saying,  but  it  offers  everything  for 
the  surrender  of  the  will.  There  is  no 
goodness  without  obedience.  No  matter 
what  you  think  or  feel  or  wish  or  hope  or 
intend  or  resolve,  you  are  displeasing  to 
God  unless  you  obey  him.  The  one  thing 
to  seek,  then,  every  day  and  always  is  an 
obedient  heart. 

How  can  we  obey?  We  must  practice 
obedience.  We  must  take  exercises  in  it. 
It  is  not  enough  to  know  that  one  ought  to 
obey,  he  must  put  his  knowledge  into  prac- 
tice. He  must  work  at  it.  It  is  no  easy 
job.  It  is  a  harder  problem  than  any  of 
those  you  get  at  school.  It  cannot  be 
solved  in  a  week  or  a  year.  But  God  gives 
you  time.  He  keeps  you  near  your  par- 
ents ten,  fifteen,  twenty  years  in  order  that 
this  great  habit  of  obedience  may  be  thor- 
[96] 


THE   BEAUTY  OF  OBEDIENCE 

oughly  and  forever  established.  But  no 
matter  how  much  time  you  have  you  never 
can  learn  obedience  without  help  from 
above. 

Saul  of  Tarsus  was  one  of  the  strongest 
men  who  ever  lived.  He  was  a  mental 
giant.  But  this  is  his  confession:  "The 
good  which  I  would  I  do  not;  but  the  evil 
which  I  would  not  that  I  practice.  O 
wretched  man  that  I  am  who  shall  deliver 
me?"  And  in  the  midst  of  his  weakness 
and  defeat  he  found  one  strong  to  save, 
Jesus  of  Nazareth,  God's  only  Son.  He 
gave  himself  to  Jesus  unreservedly  and  with 
all  his  might,  and  doing  this  he  was  able  to 
say,  "  I  can  do  all  things  through  him  who 
strengthens  me."  If  you  want  to  be  obedi- 
ent, pray  to  God  to  help  you. 

Give  yourself  to  Jesus,  the  only  perfectly 
obedient  man  our  world  has  ever  known. 
It  is  by  following  his  example  and  drinking 
[97] 


THE   BEAUTY  OF   OBEDIENCE 

in  his  spirit  and  relying  on  his  promises  that 
you  will  be  able  to  master,  little  by  little, 
with  many  a  slip  and  failure,  but  with  ever 
increasing  confidence  and  success,  the  high 
and  difficult  art  of  obeying. 


[98] 


V 
MY    FATHER'S    BUSINESS 

"Wist   ye   not    that    I    must    be   about 

my    Father's    business?"     LUKE    2:49. 

Preached  Sunday  Morning 

May   8,    1904 


••* 


MY   FATHER'S   BUSINESS 

JESUS  has  passed  his  twelfth  birthday. 
He  is  no  longer  a  boy.  He  is  a  man. 
Not  a  grown  man,  but  nevertheless  a 
man;  a  young  man,  or  as  we  would  say,  a 
youth.  He  can  now  do  things  he  has  never 
done  before.  He  can  wear  phylacteries, 
little  leathern  cases  containing  scrolls  writ- 
ten over  with  texts  of  Scripture.  He  is 
now  a  son  of  the  commandment,  a  son  of 
the  law.  He  is  a  member  of  the  congrega- 
tion and  must  attend  the  services  and  ob- 
serve the  fasts.  It  is  time  now  to  begin  the 
learning  of  a  trade.  He  can  also  begin  the 
study  of  the  Talmud,  a  big  book  into  which 
little  boys  are  not  allowed  to  look. 

But  best  of  all  he  can  go  to  Jerusalem  to 
attend  the  three  great  national  feasts.  And 
so  now  he  is  going  to  the  Passover.  He  has 

[101] 


BUSINESS 
never  been  in  Jerusalem  since  he  was  a 
baby.  For  years  he  has  wanted  to  go,  and 
now  he  is  going.  Jerusalem  is  the  greatest 
city  in  all  Palestine,  to  a  Jewish  boy  as  big 
as  New  York  and  Boston  and  Philadelphia 
and  Chicago  and  Washington  City  all  com- 
bined. Everything  big  is  in  Jerusalem,  the 
big  palaces  and  the  big  stores  and  the  big 
markets  and  the  big  men,  and  best  of  all  the 
great  temple  toward  which  all  the  good 
people  in  Galilee  turn  their  faces  when  they 
say  their  prayers.  Jesus  has  never  yet  seen 
the  city,  because  it  is  so  far  away.  It  is 
eighty  miles  from  Nazareth,  three  long 
days'  journey,  farther  from  Nazareth  in 
time  than  Denver  is  from  New  York  City. 
The  time  has  come  for  Jesus  to  travel  this 
immense  distance  to  the  City  of  King 
David. 

What  a  trip  it  was  I    It  was  the  month 
of  April   and  all  Palestine  was  abloom. 

[102] 


MY  FATHER'S  BUSINESS 
The  birds  were  singing  and  the  air  was 
heavy  with  the  fragrance  of  the  flowers 
which  everywhere  greeted  the  eye  with 
colors  more  gorgeous  than  those  in  the  robes 
of  Solomon  the  Magnificent.  All  the  roads 
were  filled  with  people,  some  riding  and 
many  walking,  and  the  numbers  constantly 
increased  as  the  caravan  approached  the 
city.  Bands  of  men  and  women,  young  and 
old,  came  out  from  every  city,  town  and 
hamlet,  until  the  roads  were  choked. and 
packed,  and  it  seemed  that  all  the  world 
was  flowing  toward  Mount  Zion.  And  as 
the  people  marched  they  sang  favorite 
stanzas  from  the  Psalms.  Listen  and  you 
will  hear  a  company  in  the  valley  singing: 
"  I  will  lift  up  mine  eyes  unto  the  hills, 
from  whence  cometh  my  help.  My  help 
cometh  from  the  Lord,  which  made  heaven 
and  earth."  And  now  from  some  hill-top 
there  float  down  the  words :  "  I  was  glad 
[103] 


MY  FATHER'S  BUSINESS 
when  they  said  unto  me,  Let  us  go  into  the 
house  of  the  Lordl  Our  feet  shall  stand 
within  thy  gates,  O  Jerusalem."  And  now 
across  the  scented  fields  there  comes  the 
music  of  this  glad  refrain:  "Behold  how 
good  and  how  pleasant  it  is  for  brethren  to 
dwell  together  in  unity."  So  they  marched 
and  so  they  sang,  all  the  way  to  the  city. 

What  a  city  it  was — a  thousand  times 
larger  than  little  Nazareth.  When  the  city 
burst  upon  the  eyes  of  Jesus  he  must  have 
repeated  the  poet's  words : 

"Beautiful  for  situation,  the  joy  of  the 
whole  earth,  is  Mount  Zion,  the  city  of  the 
great  king! " 

I  will  not  describe  the  city  nor  attempt  to 
tell  you  how  Jesus  felt  when  he  looked  upon 
the  temple,  with  its  terraces  of  snowy  mar- 
ble and  its  gilded  pinnacles  and  domes.  Be- 
fore he  knew  it,  the  time  had  come  to  return 
to  Nazareth.  The  fe^st  of  the  Passover 
[104] 


MY  FATHER'S  BUSINESS 
lasted  a  week,  but  attendance  was  obligatory 
only  on  the  first  two  days,  and  many  pil- 
grims started  homeward  at  the  end  of  that 
time.  Joseph  and  Mary  and  a  large  num- 
ber of  Galileans  probably  started  north  on 
the  morning  of  the  third  day.  They  sup- 
posed that  Jesus  was  with  the  other  boys; 
indeed,  I  suspect  that  some  good  neighbor 
assured  Mary  that  Jesus  was  there,  and  that 
she  had  seen  him  with  her  own  eyes,  and  it 
was  not  until  night  that  it  was  discovered 
that  Jesus  was  missing. 

A  search  was  made  for  him  among  his 
relatives,  and  then  among  the  Nazareth 
neighbors,  but  the  boy  was  not  to  be  found. 
It  was  with  a  heavy  heart  that  Mary  lay 
down  to  try  to  sleep.  She  did  not  sleep 
much,  I  think,  for  she  thought  of  a  thousand 
things,  as  mothers  will,  and  one  of  the  things 
she  thought  about  was  no  doubt  the  experi- 
ence she  had  had  with  Herod  years  before, 
[105] 


MY  FATHER'S  BUSINESS 
when  the  crafty  king  had  attempted  to  take 
her  baby's  life.  Herod  is  dead,  but  is  there 
another  Herod  in  Jerusalem  who  has  stolen 
her  boy  and  possibly  put  him  to  death?  It 
was  a  long,  long  night,  and  as  soon  as  morn- 
ing came  Joseph  and  Mary  started  back  to 
Jerusalem.  The  way  seemed  ten  times 
farther  than  it  had  seemed  the  day  before, 
for  a  sad  heart  increases  distances  amaz- 
ingly. 

Late  in  the  afternoon  they  reached  the 
city  and  began  to  inquire  at  the  doors  of  all 
the  people  whom  they  knew  for  information 
concerning  the  boy  who  had  disappeared. 
No  one  had  seen  him.  They  wandered 
through  the  crowded  streets  eagerly  scan- 
ning every  face,  but  the  one  beautiful  face 
for  which  they  looked  was  nowhere  to  be 
seen.  It  was  now  dark,  and  through  the 
dreary  night  Mary  waited  for  the  morning. 
The  bazaars  were  early  visited,  and  many  a 
[106] 


MY   FATHER'S    BUSINESS 
booth  and  stall  was  eagerly  inspected,  but 
all  in  vain. 

Next  they  went  to  the  temple,  but  he  was 
not  in  any  of  its  splendid  courts.  About  to 
give  up  in  despair,  Mary  entered  a  chamber 
adjoining  one  of  the  temple  courts,  a  sort 
of  schoolroom  in  which  Bible  teachers 
were  wont  to  meet  for  the  study  of  the 
Scriptures.  The  greatest  Doctors  in  the 
land  were  in  the  habit  of  meeting  here,  and 
Mary  timidly  glanced  round  the  room. 
And  lo,  there  on  the  polished  mosaic  floor, 
in  the  very  midst  of  the  Masters  of  Israel, 
Jesus  sat.  The  artist  Hofmann  has  painted 
Jesus  standing.  Luke  has  it  right:  He  was 
seated.  He  was  not  teaching  the  Rabbis, 
but  being  taught  by  them.  He  sat  at  their 
feet  and  listened.  He  listened  so  intently 
that  the  teachers  were  delighted. 

Nothing  so  delights  a  teacher  as  the  atten- 
tion of  a  pupil.     Now  and  then  a  hot  ques- 
[107] 


MY  FATHER'S  BUSINESS 
tion  would  rise  to  his  lips.  The  old  men 
made  reply  and  then  proceeded  to  question 
him.  His  answers  were  so  good  they  were 
all  astonished.  Jesus  had  studied  the 
Prophets  and  the  Psalms  and  had  done  a 
deal  of  thinking,  and  his  questions  were  so 
keen  and  his  answers  were  so  wise  that  the 
Masters  of  the  law  were  all  amazed.  Just 
then  Mary  caught  his  eye.  Calling  him 
aside,  she  said,  "  My  boy,  why  have  you 
acted  in  this  way?  Your  father  and  I  have 
looked  for  you  everywhere,  O  so  anxious." 
To  which  Jesus  replied :  "  Did  you  not 
know  that  I  must  be  about  my  Father's 
business?" 

It  was  a  great  day  for  surprises.  The 
Rabbis  were  surprised  at  Jesus'  wisdom, 
the  parents  were  surprised  that  Jesus  should 
leave  them,  the  boy  was  surprised  that  his 
parents  should  not  know  just  where  to  find 
him.  He  was  no  idle,  curious  sightseer, 
[108] 


MY  FATHER'S  BUSINESS 
even  though  he  was  only  a  country  boy  for 
the  first  time  in  a  city.  He  was  not  inter- 
ested in  the  marble  of  the  palaces,  or  the 
uniform  of  the  soldiers  of  the  garrison  of 
Antonia.  He  was  no  bargain  seeker,  look- 
ing for  pretty  things  in  the  tempting  booths 
and  stalls. 

Jerusalem  was  indeed  magnificent,  quite 
different  from  little  Nazareth  with  its  cot- 
tages of  mud  and  its  dull  carpenter  shop 
and  its  dingy  synagogue,  but  he  could  not 
be  taken  captive  by  his  eyes.  The  glitter 
of  the  gold  and  the  sparkle  of  the  gems  and 
the  gleam  of  the  marble  and  the  splendor 
of  the  robes  could  not  hold  him  even  for  an 
hour.  Even  the  temple  worship,  with  its 
white  robed  priests  and  its  stately  cere- 
monials and  its  choirs  of  Levites  and  its 
orchestra  of  trained  musicians,  was  not  so 
attractive  as  a  meeting  for  the  study  of  the 
Bible.  He  was  thirsty  for  knowledge.  He 
[109] 


MY  FATHER'S  BUSINESS 
was  hungry  for  truth,  and  so  he  turned 
away  from  sights  which  dazzled,  to  the  doc- 
tors of  the  law.  "  Did  you  not  know, 
mother,  that  this  is  the  place  for  a  boy  like 
me,  the  only  place  I  care  to  be?  I  am  sur- 
prised that  you  looked  for  me  any  place 
else.  Did  you  not  know  that  I  must  be 
about  my  Father's  business?" 

These  are  the  first  recorded  words  of 
Jesus,  and  every  syllable  is  precious.  The 
poet  Wordsworth  says  that  the  child  is 
father  of  the  man,  and  surely  in  these  words 
of  Jesus  we  get  a  hint  of  all  that  the  man 
Jesus  is  ever  to  become.  As  in  a  mountain 
lake  one  sees  reflected  the  mountains  and  the 
forests  and  the  procession  of  the  clouds,  so 
in  this  single  sentence  of  Jesus  is  mirrored 
the  entire  New  Testament  land  and  sky. 

The  very  tone  of  his  question  is  sugges- 
tive.    He  is  surprised  that  those  who  know 
him  do  not  expect  to  find  him  in  the  House 
[no] 


MY  FATHER'S  BUSINESS 
of  God,  engaged  in  the  study  of  God's  word. 
Where  else,  he  asks,  ought  a  boy  of  twelve 
to  be,  but  at  the  feet  of  men  who  are  ex- 
pounders of  the  Scriptures?  And  every 
boy  and  girl  who  wishes  to  follow  the 
example  of  Jesus  should  say  to  every 
tempter  who  tries  to  keep  him  away  from 
the  Bible  School :  "  Don't  you  know  that  I 
must  be  about  my  Father's  business?"  A 
boy  or  girl  is  never  in  his  place  on  Sunday 
morning  unless  he  is  in  the  Bible  School. 
That  any  youth  should  be  outside  the  school 
is  of  all  things  most  surprising. 

And,  if  it  is  the  natural  and  normal  thing 
for  boys  and  girls  to  be  about  their  Father's 
business,  hearing  his  word  and  obeying  his 
law,  then  all  the  way  through  life,  wherever 
and  whenever  there  is  a  right  thing  to  be 
done  which  you  are  able  to  do,  and  a  wrong 
thing  to  be  struck  which  you  are  able  to 
strike,  and  a  battle  to  be  fought  against  evil 
[in] 


MY  FATHER'S  BUSINESS 
in  which  you  are  able  to  engage,  you  ought 
to  be  found  in  your  place;  and  that  any 
human  being  should  ever  be  found  any- 
where else  is  distressing  and  amazing. 
Voices  will  plead  with  you,  calling  you  in 
other  directions,  but  to  all  of  these  voices 
your  answer  should  be,  "Wist  ye  not  that  I 
must  be  about  my  Father's  business?" 

And  mark  that  great  word  "must"  It 
was  one  of  Jesus'  earliest  words,  and  he  used 
it  to  the  end.  He  was  not  ashamed  to  say 
that  there  were  some  things  which  he  was 
obliged  to  do.  Let  no  boy  ever  hesitate  to 
say  "  I  must."  Many  a  man's  life  has  been 
wrecked  because  he  never  learned,  when  a 
boy,  to  speak  the  words  "  I  must."  Jesus 
early  learned  the  lesson,  and  so  at  thirty  he 
could  say,  "I  must  preach  the  gospel." 
When  men  stood  amazed  at  his  tireless  in- 
dustry he  said,  "  I  must  work  the  works  of 
him  that  sent  me  while  'tis  day." 
[112] 


MY  FATHER'S  BUSINESS 
When  men  urged  him  to  save  himself 
from  his  murderous  foes  he  said :  "  I  must 
go  to  Jerusalem,  I  must  suffer  many  things, 
I  must  be  lifted  up."  And  this  made  Jesus 
strong.  Nobody  was  able  to  turn  him 
aside  from  the  road  which  he  felt  that  he 
must  travel.  No  one  could  persuade  him 
not  to  do  a  thing  which  he  was  convinced 
he  ought  to  do.  His  dearest  friends  and 
even  his  brothers  urged  him  to  give  up  his 
plans,  and  his  reply  in  substance  was  al- 
ways this :  "  Don't  you  know  that  I  must 
be  about  my  Father's  business?"  Jesus 
was  bound,  and  yet  he  was  free. 

Boys  and  girls,  and  for  that  matter  grown 
folks  too,  sometimes  have  curious  notions  of 
liberty.  To  be  free  they  think  is  to  be  able 
to  do  just  what  one  pleases.  But  true  free- 
dom is  the  power  to  do  what  we  ought  to  do. 
A  dead  leaf  falling  from  a  bough  has  power 
to  do  just  what  it  pleases,  because  it  is  dead, 


MY  FATHER'S  BUSINESS 
and  no  one  cares  how  much  it  eddies  or 
where  it  falls.  But  the  big  earth  in  travel- 
ing round  the  sun  is  very  careful  not  to  get 
outside  her  appointed  path,  for  if  she 
should  wander  even  a  little  from  the  path 
which  God  has  marked  out  she  would  up- 
set all  the  life  upon  her  surface.  The  earth 
is  far  freer  than  an  autumn  leaf.  It  gets 
its  freedom  from  the  sun.  If  we  were  only 
dead  autumn  leaves  we  could  drift  and  eddy 
hither  and  thither  and  do  anything  we 
pleased;  but  being  immortal  souls,  created 
in  God's  image,  we  have  a  mighty  work  to 
do  and  should  keep  the  orbit  which  our 
Father's  love  has  traced. 

Jesus  was  the  freest  man  who  has  ever 
lived  upon  our  earth,  and  this  is  what  he 
says  to  us  every  one  and  always :  "  If  the 
Son  shall  make  you  free,  ye  shall  be  free  in- 
deed." 

"  My  Father."     This  was  Jesus'  name  for 
[114] 


MY  FATHER'S  BUSINESS 
God.  When  he  spoke  to  God  he  always 
called  him  "  Father."  When  he  was  suc- 
cessful in  his  work,  he  said,  "  Father,  I 
thank  thee."  When  he  was  overcome  with 
grief  he  cried,  "  Father,  if  it  be  possible,  let 
this  cup  pass."  When  he  pleaded  for  his 
disciples,  he  said,  "  Father,  keep  through 
thine  own  name  these  whom  thou  hast  given 
me."  On  the  cross  he  prayed,  "  Father, 
forgive  them,"  and  with  his  last  breath  he 
said,  "  Father,  into  thy  hands  I  commend 
my  spirit."  This  is  the  word  he  wanted  all 
men  to  use. 

When  you  pray,  say,  "  Father."  When 
you  are  worried,  remember  that  God  is  your 
Father.  When  you  ask  God  for  blessings, 
remember  how  willing  parents  are  to  give 
good  things  to  their  children.  And  because 
everything  belongs  to  God,  Jesus  treated 
everything  with  reverence.  He  would  not 
allow  men  to  swear  by  heaven  or  the  earth 
[115] 


MY  FATHER'S  BUSINESS 
or  Jerusalem  or  their  own  head,  for  all  these 
belonged  to  his  Heavenly  Father.  He 
drove  the  traders  from  the  temple  because 
they  were  desecrating  the  temple  of  his 
Father.  He  cheered  the  hearts  of  his  dis- 
ciples by  reminding  them  that  the  house  of 
many  mansions  belongs  to  the  Heavenly 
Father.  All  people  were  dear  to  Jesus  be- 
cause all  of  them  were  the  children  of  God. 
Beggars  and  lepers  and  blind  men  and  bad 
men,  the  most  loathsome  and  forsaken  of 
men  were  dear  to  his  heart  because  they  be- 
longed to  his  Father  in  heaven.  To  be 
worthy  of  his  Father  was  his  constant  ambi- 
tion and  unfailing  delight.  "My  meat," 
he  said,  "  is  to  do  his  will  and  to  finish  his 
work." 

When  only  twelve  Jesus  had  grasped  the 
great  idea  that  life  must  be  lived  for  a  pur- 
pose.    There  is  business  to  do  and  the  busi- 
ness belongs  to  God.     In  the  temple  Jesus 
[116] 


MY  FATHER'S  BUSINESS 
forgets  all  about  himself.  Some  boys  study 
because  they  are  compelled  to,  or  because 
they  want  to  make  a  show,  or  because  they 
expect  to  use  their  education  in  making 
money  later  on,  but  Jesus  listened  to  his 
teachers  and  pondered  the  lessons  which 
they  set  him  in  order  to  advance  the  glory  of 
his  Father.  All  kinds  of  work  take  on  new 
luster  when  we  think  of  it  as  being  given  to 
us  by  our  Father.  Men  sometimes  say, 
"  My  business,"  "  my  studies,"  "  my  plans," 
forgetting  that  God  has  anything  to  do  with 
them.  Everything  we  do,  if  we  do  it 
rightly,  is  our  Father's  business.  It  is  ours 
and  it  is  also  his.  Our  life  is  ours  and  his, 
so  also  is  our  work.  We  are  interested  in 
our  tasks,  and  so  is  he.  We  bend  over  our 
studies,  and  so  does  he.  Everything  that 
touches  us  also  touches  him,  and  that  boys 
and  girls  should  obey  their  parents  and  pay 
attention  to  their  teachers  is  not  only  their 


MY   FATHER'S   BUSINESS 
business,  but  it  is  also  the  business  of  the 
Heavenly  Father. 

Begin  to-day,  if  you  have  not  begun  be- 
fore, to  live  and  work  for  God.  That  is 
something  you  cannot  begin  too  early. 
Whatever  you  do  at  home  or  in  school,  at 
work  or  in  play,  do  for  his  glory.  Use  your 
life  as  a  gift  given  you  for  a  high  and  holy 
purpose,  and  remembering  that  you  are  en- 
gaged in  your  Father's  business  you  will 
never  be  overcome.  Like  the  Master  you 
will  often  say,  "  I  must,"  and  like  him,  when 
you  are  urged  to  turn  aside,  you  will  say,  "  I 
have  a  baptism  to  be  baptized  with,  and 
how  am  I  straitened  till  it  be  accom- 
plished, "  Like  him  you  will  drink  the  cup 
which  the  Father  gives  you  to  drink,  and 
like  him  you  will  be  able  to  exclaim  with  a 
voice  of  triumph,  when  life  has  reached  its 
close,  "  I  have  finished  the  work  which  thou 
gavest  me  to  do." 

[118] 


VI 
THE    SILENT   YEARS 

"  And  Jesus   advanced   in  wisdom   and 

stature    and    in    favor    with    God    and 

man."  LUKE  2:  52. 

Preached  Sunday  Morning 

May   14,    1905 


THE   SILENT   YEARS 

I  WANT  to  think  with  you  about  the 
silent  years  of  Jesus.  By  "silent 
years "  is  usually  meant  the  period  be- 
tween the  day  on  which  Jesus  was  found  in 
the  temple,  and  the  day  on  which  he  ap- 
peared at  the  river  Jordan  to  be  baptized 
by  the  prophet  John.  Through  all  this 
stretch  of  eighteen  years  we  do  not  catch  a 
glimpse  of  Jesus  or  hear  a  syllable  from  his 
lips.  We  listen,  but  there  is  not  the  sug- 
gestion of  a  rustle.  We  shout  our  questions, 
but  the  silence  sends  back  no  echo.  This 
period  is  a  sort  of  Sahara  desert  with  not  one 
oasis  in  it  at  which  the  weary  Bible  student 
can  pause  and  quench  his  thirst.  From  the 
age  of  twelve  to  the  age  of  thirty  the  years 
of  Jesus  are  silent. 

And  the  same  may  be  said  of  the  years 

[121] 


THE  SILENT  YEARS 
between  his  birth  and  his  appearance  in  the 
temple.  These  twelve  years  may  be  added 
to  the  following  eighteen,  so  that  we  have 
thirty  years  of  silence.  How  little  is  told 
us  of  the  birth  and  infancy  of  Jesus.  We 
know  he  was  born  in  Bethlehem,  that  wise 
men  visited  him  there,  that  he  was  brought 
when  a  few  weeks  old  into  the  temple  at 
Jerusalem,  that  he  was  carried  for  safety 
into  Egypt  and  thence  to  Nazareth  in 
Galilee — and  that  is  all.  The  years  come 
and  go,  and  not  a  voice  breaks  the  silence 
until  the  boy  is  twelve  years  old.  Then  the 
curtain  is  lifted,  but  only  for  an  instant. 
We  catch  a  glimpse  of  a  boyish  face,  we 
hear  the  music  of  a  boy's  voice  asking  a 
question,  and  then  the  curtain  drops,  not  to 
rise  again  until  the  man  Jesus  meets  the 
prophet  from  the  desert  at  the  river  Jordan. 
It  is  surprising  that  since  that  curtain 
fell  no  one  has  yet  been  found  strong 

[122] 


THE  SILENT  YEARS 

enough  to  raise  it.  It  is  one  of  the  wonders 
of  the  life  of  Jesus  that  thirty  years  are  si- 
lent. When  you  count  the  miracles  of  the 
New  Testament  do  not  forget  this  miracle 
of  silence.  When  you  marvel  at  the  things 
which  are  said  do  not  fail  to  marvel  at  the 
things  which  are  not  said.  How  surprising 
it  is  that  almost  nothing  of  those  thirty  years 
has  as  yet  been  discovered.  Why  did  not 
the  apostles  go  back  to  Nazareth  and  gather 
up  information  in  regard  to  what  Jesus  said 
and  did  as  a  boy,  and  write  it  down  for  the 
instruction  of  countless  generations  which 
would  have  treasured  every  word?  Or 
why  did  not  one  of  the  more  than  six  hun- 
dred converts  whom  Jesus  left  behind  him 
on  the  day  of  his  ascension  question  the  men 
and  women  of  Nazareth  about  their  towns- 
man, and  find  out  at  least  some  of  the  things 
which  he  did  as  a  boy,  a  youth,  a  man? 
It  is  amazing  that  of  all  the  Christians 
[123] 


THE  SILENT  YEARS 
who  lived  in  the  last  half  of  the  first  cen- 
tury not  one  was  able  to  put  down  on  paper 
a  single  item  of  information  concerning 
these  thirty  long  and  wonderful  years  which 
has  reached  a  modern  eye,  although  thou- 
sands of  keen-eyed  men  have  searched  dili- 
gently for  just  such  a  priceless  treasure. 
Here  is  a  thing  which  the  wisest  men  of  our 
time  are  not  able  to  do — they  are  not  able 
to  find  out  what  Jesus  did  or  said  through 
these  thirty  years  of  silence.  They  can  do 
almost  anything  else.  They  can  soar  into 
the  dark  stellar  spaces,  and  measure  the 
stars  and  weigh  them;  they  can  delve  into 
the  earth  and  read  the  secrets  of  the  rocks ; 
they  can  dive  into  the  ocean  and  make  a 
map  of  its  wonderful  floor;  they  have  been 
for  many  years  ransacking  the  mounds  and 
tombs  and  ruins  of  buried  cities,  bringing 
forth  all  sorts  of  treasures,  but  not  one  scrap 
of  authentic  information  concerning  those 
[124] 


THE  SILENT  YEARS 
thirty  years  of  silence  has  as  yet  been 
brought  to  light.  A  mangled  sentence  here 
and  there  has  been  discovered  which  may 
possibly  have  come  from  his  lips,  but  un- 
certainty hangs  round  all  such  sayings,  and 
not  one  of  them  adds  anything  of  value  to 
the  information  already  given  in  the  four 
gospels. 

Why  these  long  years  of  silence?  The 
mystery  becomes  greater  when  we  bear  in 
mind  who  Jesus  was.  He  was  the  greatest 
man  who  has  ever  lived,  the  holiest  of  the 
mighty  and  the  mightiest  of  the  holy.  He 
was  the  Prince  of  Glory,  the  Prince  of 
Peace.  He  was  the  Messiah,  the  Savior  of 
the  world,  God's  only-begotten  Son,  God's 
well-beloved  Son  whom  all  men  are  to  love 
and  honor,  the  lamb  who  takes  away  the 
sins  of  the  world,  the  teacher  who  said: 
"  Heaven  and  earth  shall  pass  away  but  my 
words  shall  not  pass  away."  And  yet  nine- 
[125] 


THE  SILENT  YEARS 
tenths  of  the  life  of  this  man  of  men,  this 
King  of  the  Nations,  is  a  total  blank.  The 
curtain  is  down  and  no  one  can  lift  it.  The 
curtain  is  thick  and  no  one  can  see 
through  it. 

If  you  ask  why  this  silence,  my  answer 
can  be  but  a  guess,  but  the  guess  is  this:  It 
pleased  God  to  give  Jesus  many  silent  years 
in  order  that  in  all  points  he  might  be  as  we 
are.  In  living  in  obscurity  he  entered  into 
the  lot  of  mortals.  Had  all  his  life  been 
open,  recorded,  trumpeted,  he  would  not 
have  been  so  near  us  as  he  is.  The  world 
never  thinks  it  worth  its  while  to  chronicle 
the  cooings  and  the  prattlings  of  a  baby. 
What  does  the  world  care  for  the  plays,  the 
games,  the  sorrows  and  the  joys  of  a  boy? 
What  do  the  bookmakers  care  for  what 
goes  on  in  a  carpenter's  shop,  or  in  any  shop 
where  things  are  made  and  sold?  The 
routine  drudgery  of  the  world  goes  on  from 
[126] 


THE   SILENT  YEARS 

day  to  day  and  from  year  to  year  without 
being  heralded  or  written.  The  wise  men 
did  not  write  down  the  things  which  you 
and  I  did  when  we  were  children,  nor  have 
they  written  the  things  which  we  older  folks 
have  done  as  men. 

Life  is  too  ordinary,  prosaic,  common,  to 
tempt  the  pen  of  genius,  and  the  average 
man  has,  as  Jesus  had,  a  life  of  silent  years. 
If  we  were  asked  to  write  the  story  of  our 
own  life  the  story  would  not  be  long.  It  is 
shorter  still  when  the  writing  of  it  is  left  to 
others.  Only  a  fraction  of  Jesus'  life  was 
ever  put  on  paper, — just  enough,  as  an 
Apostle  puts  it,  to  persuade  the  world  that 
Jesus  is  the  Son  of  God. 

But  while  in  one  sense  the  years  are  not 
recorded,  there  is  a  sense  in  which  every 
year  is  written  in  ink  which  cannot  fade. 
We  may  not  write  our  life  on  paper,  but  we 
write  it  in  the  Book  of  Life.  There  were  in 
[127] 


THE  SILENT  YEARS 
a  deep  sense  no  silent  years  in  the  life  of 
Jesus,  no  years  which  did  not  record  them- 
selves in  the  big  book  of  human  life.  Jesus 
wrote  himself  on  Mary's  heart  and  on 
Joseph's  heart  and  on  the  hearts  of  all  the 
members  of  the  Nazareth  home.  He  left 
a  record  of  himself  on  the  mind  of  every 
boy  with  whom  he  played  in  the  street  or 
with  whom  he  roamed  over  the  Galilean 
fields.  He  impressed  himself  on  every  man 
he  knew  in  Nazareth,  or  with  whom  he  did 
business,  or  by  whose  side  he  sat  in  the 
Synagogue;  he  was  recording  himself  all 
the  time. 

And  that  is  what  we  do.  We  begin  the 
writing  of  our  life  in  our  cradle.  At  least 
one  man  and  one  woman  were  different 
after  we  came.  We  have  influenced  more 
or  less  every  one  with  whom  we  ever 
played  and  with  whom  we  ever  worked. 
We  have  written  ourself  on  the  hearts  of  all 
[128] 


THE  SILENT  YEARS 
our  teachers.  All  our  friends  bear  in  them- 
selves the  evidence  of  our  living.  And  so 
there  are  no  unrecorded  years.  In  the  si- 
lent years  Jesus  wrote  himself  deep  in  the 
life  of  Palestine.  In  those  thirty  years  he 
influenced  the  thought,  the  feeling,  and  the 
choices  of  every  one  with  whom  he  had  to 
do,  and  that  is  what  we  all  are  doing  all  the 
time.  Whether  we  are  conscious  of  it  or 
not,  we  are  writing  ourselves  down  in  the 
great  volume  of  the  world's  life. 

And  because  this  is  true,  we  must  not  be 
surprised  to  learn  that  the  so-called  silent 
years  all  sooner  or  later  break  into  voice, 
and  the  hidden  years,  so-called,  all  burst 
upon  the  sight.  No  writer  has  told  us  on 
paper  what  Jesus  did  up  to  the  age  of 
thirty,  and  yet  we  know  without  being  told. 
We  have  the  record  of  three  flowering  years, 
and  from  this  record  we  can  tell  just  what 
Jesus  said  and  did  in  the  so-called  years  of 

[120] 


THE   SILENT  YEARS 
silence.    Let  us  look  at  some  of  these  things 
for  a  moment. 

He  learned  to  love  nature  before  he  was 
thirty.  Nazareth  stood  in  one  of  the  love- 
liest spots  in  all  Palestine.  Looking  north 
he  could  see  the  snowy  top  of  Hermon,  and 
looking  eastward  the  rounded  dome  of 
Tabor.  Looking  southward  his  eyes  swept 
the  lovely  plain  of  Esdraelon,  and  in  the 
west  he  saw  Carmel  and  the  shimmering 
surface  of  the  blue  Mediterranean.  Every 
spring  the  fields  round  Nazareth  sparkled 
and  blazed  like  the  robe  of  a  king,  and  the 
great  night  sky  with  its  constellations  kept 
right  on  declaring  the  glory  of  God  and 
showing  forth  his  handiwork.  While  a 
boy  he  bathed  himself  in  the  loveliness  of 
nature,  became  drenched  with  its  perfumes 
and  glories,  and  so  when  a  man  he  opens  his 
mouth  to  speak,  one  catches  the  scent  of  the 
fields  in  his  sentences,  and  feels  the  beauty 
[130] 


THE   SILENT  YEARS 

of  spring  in  his  sermons.  How  naturally 
he  brings  in  the  birds  and  the  flowers,  the 
grass  and  the  rain,  the  trees  and  the  clouds, 
seeing  in  all  of  them  intimations  and  self- 
disclosures  of  God.  No  man  begins  to  love 
nature  at  thirty.  That  is  a  grace  which 
must  be  developed  in  the  days  of  one's 
youth. 

He    learned   to    read    men    as    well    as 
Nature.     Human  nature  is  a  difficult  book, 
but  he  could  read  it.     He  loved  to  study 
men.     He  watched  the  children  playing  in 
the  streets,  overheard  their  laughter   and 
their  quarreling,   he  watched    farmers   at 
their  work,  and  women  at  their  housekeep- 
ing.    He  knew  life  in  the  street  and  in  the 
fields  and  in  the  home.     A  little  town  is  the 
best  of  schools  in  which  to  study  human 
nature.     In  the  quiet  ongoing  of  the  un- 
troubled  and   unhurried    days   men   have 
ample  opportunity  to  show  themselves,  and 
[131] 


THE  SILENT  YEARS 
in  the  close  contacts  of  the  little  world  men 
come  to  know  what  human  nature  is.  For 
thirty  years  Jesus  lived  in  a  narrow  country 
town,  and  at  the  end  of  that  time  he  was 
master  of  the  secrets  of  the  heart.  He  knew 
men's  weaknesses  and  biases,  their  preju- 
dices and  passions,  their  whims  and  incon- 
sistencies ;  as  one  of  the  Evangelists  boldly 
puts  it:  "He  knew  all  men,  and  needed 
not  that  any  should  testify  of  man :  for  he 
knew  what  was  in  man." 

Another  book  which  he  learned  to  read 
was  the  Scriptures.  From  a  boy  he  had 
been  familiar  with  them,  and  as  soon  as  he 
comes  before  us  we  hear  him  quoting  the 
Bible.  He  does  it  in  a  way  which  shows 
how  well  he  knows  it.  He  knows  it  so  well 
that  he  can  use  it.  It  takes  a  deal  of  study 
to  learn  the  Bible  so  thoroughly  that  one 
can  use  it  in  the  critical  moments  of  life. 
Jesus  always  used  the  Scripture  in  beating 
[132] 


THE  SILENT  YEARS 
back  his  foes.  When  the  devil  tempted 
him  he  discomfited  him  by  hurling  Scrip- 
ture at  him.  When  his  enemies  attacked 
him  in  the  streets  he  overwhelmed  them  by 
quotations  from  the  writings  of  holy  men 
of  old.  When  they  tried  to  trip  him  up  by 
quoting  only  a  part  of  a  sentence  he  could 
go  on  and  complete  it  and  show  them  they 
had  grasped  only  a  fragment  of  the  truth. 
In  his  dying  hour  he  comforted  himself  by 
repeating  sentences  from  the  Psalms.  He 
could  use  Scripture  as  a  sword,  a  staff  or  a 
pillow.  All  those  years  of  silence  must 
have  been  filled  with  Bible  study,  for  no 
man  begins  at  thirty  to  use  the  Scriptures  as 
Jesus  used  them,  if  he  has  never  studied 
them  before. 

In  these  thirty  years  he  formed  the  habit 

of  praying.     All  through  his  public  life  he 

is  a  man  of  prayer.     He  prays  naturally 

and  always.     He  prays  before  he  enters  on 

[i33] 


THE  SILENT  YEARS 
his  work,  after  he  has  won  his  victory,  and 
in  the  stress  and  strain  of  crowded  and 
fatiguing  days.  He  prays  early  in  the 
morning,  he  prays  far  into  the  night.  So 
often  does  he  pray  that  men  who  know  him 
best  ask  him  to  teach  them  how  to  do  it  too. 
For  him  to  pray  was  easy  and  satisfying  and 
joyful,  because  from  a  boy  he  had  poured 
out  his  heart  to  God  in  the  shop  and  in  the 
fields  in  adoration  and  thanksgiving.  Men 
who  do  not  learn  early  how  to  pray  are 
handicapped  in  their  later  years,  and  often 
find  it  difficult  to  pray.  Those  pray  with 
greatest  freedom,  faith  and  rapture,  who 
formed  the  habit  of  often  speaking  to  God 
in  the  simple  trustful  days  of  childhood. 

He  also  formed  the  habit  of  going  to 
church,  or  as  the  people  in  Palestine  ex- 
pressed it,  of  going  to  synagogue.  After 
thirty  we  see  him  always  in  his  place  in  the 
church  on  the  Sabbath  day.  One  of  the 
[i34] 


THE  SILENT  YEARS 
Evangelists  tells  us  it  was  his  "  custom  "  to 
be  there.  The  custom  was  formed  in  the 
thirty  years  of  silence.  From  the  earliest 
years  he  had  been  taken  to  the  synagogue, 
and  to  be  absent  from  a  Sabbath  service 
would  have  created  a  scandal  among  all 
good  people  in  Nazareth.  The  modern 
foolishness  had  not  yet  taken  possession  of 
parents'  hearts,  that  in  religion  and  in  re- 
ligion only  we  must  let  children  do  what 
they  please.  To  the  end  of  his  life  Jesus 
was  a  churchgoer  because  he  had  estab- 
lished that  habit  in  the  days  of  his  youth. 
He  had  also  formed  the  habit  of  think- 
ing. As  a  boy  he  had  asked  questions  and 
meditated,  and  as  a  carpenter  he  had 
thought  as  he  had  worked.  It  is  a  mistake 
to  suppose  that  men  who  work  with  their 
hands  do  not  think.  Some  of  the  sanest 
and  finest  thinking  in  the  world  has  been 
done  by  men  who  all  the  time  kept  working 
[i35] 


THE  SILENT  YEARS 
with  their  hands.  Mind  and  hands  can 
work  at  the  same  time.  How  long  and 
carefully  Jesus  had  thought  can  be  seen  by 
the  daring  way  in  which  he  speaks  when  he 
comes  out  of  his  obscurity  at  the  age  of 
thirty. 

He  has  a  message  and  he  speaks  it  with- 
out a  quaver  or  a  hesitation.  It  is  a  message 
which  is  so  strong  and  radical  that  it  stirs 
the  nation  to  the  core.  Even  that  great 
thinker,  John  the  Baptist,  fades  away  in  the 
glory  of  this  fresh  thinker  from  the  little 
shop  in  Nazareth.  His  sentences  are  as 
clear  as  crystal.  Only  men  who  have  done 
much  thinking  are  able  to  express  them- 
selves with  clearness.  The  reason  there  is 
mud  in  much  that  is  said  to-day  is  because 
men  who  write  and  speak  are  too  hurried 
to  think  themselves  out  into  clearness.  His 
paragraphs  are  as  beautiful  as  they  are 
clear.  His  parables  are  gems.  Not  a 
[136] 


THE  SILENT  YEARS 
writer  in  nineteen  centuries  has  been  able 
to  write  parables  equal  to  his.  These 
parables  were  not  made  on  the  spur  of  the 
moment:  some  of  them,  I  doubt  not,  took 
their  shape  in  the  carpenter  shop  in  Naza- 
reth. His  words  carry  with  them  a  certain 
atmosphere  which  the  sensitive  soul  can 
feel,  and  this  atmosphere  is  the  creation  of 
a  mind  which  is  much  given  to  meditation. 
There  is  a  calmness  and  a  restfulness  in  the 
words  of  Jesus  given  to  them  by  a  mind 
which  has  thought  the  problem  through. 

In  those  silent  years  he  had  formed  cer- 
tain convictions  which  went  with  him  to 
the  end.  The  difference  between  an  idea 
and  a  conviction  is  that  we  hold  the  first 
while  the  second  holds  us.  A  conviction 
is  an  idea  which  has  gotten  such  a  grip 
upon  us  that  it  moulds  and  directs  our  life. 
In  the  silent  years  certain  convictions  took 
shape  in  Jesus — conceptions  of  God  and 
[i37] 


THE    SILENT  YEARS 

man,  of  right  and  duty,  of  this  world  and 
the  next — which  determined  the  character 
of  his  conduct  and  his  teaching.  And  these  , 
convictions  were  not  surrendered  or  even 
modified  by  the  fierce  opposition  of  the 
world.  A  pitiless  storm  beat  upon  his  head 
all  the  way  from  Nazareth  to  Golgotha,  but 
not  one  conviction  melted  down  under  the 
fury  of  the  awful  blast.  The  rain  de- 
scended and  the  floods  came,  and  the  winds 
blew,  and  beat  upon  that  house ;  and  it  fell 
not  for  it  was  founded  upon  a  rock. 
Through  the  years  of  silence  the  deep 
foundations  had  been  laid  with  fidelity  and 
care,  and  nothing  could  overturn  the  struc- 
ture built  upon  them. 

He  had  built  up  a  disposition  which  was 
also  incapable  of  destruction.  The  two 
tempers  which  strike  us  in  the  man  Jesus 
is  first  his  abhorrence  of  evil  and  secondly 
his  love  for  human  beings.  How  he  hated 
[138] 


THE    SILENT  YEARS 

insincerity  1  Snobbery  and  foppery,  pre- 
tense and  putting-on,  all  shams  and  hum- 
bugs were  odious  to  him.  He  struck  them 
whenever  he  got  a  chance.  And  if  more 
grown  people  nowadays  had  a  deeper 
hatred  for  show  and  sham,  there  would  be 
less  humbugging  than  there  is!  And  then 
he  despised  cruelty.  Unkindness  to  a 
human  being,  especially  if  the  man  or 
woman  was  sick  and  forlorn  or  despised  or 
poor,  stirred  his  soul  to  blazing  indignation. 
As  a  boy  he  had  learned  to  hate  hypocrisy, 
and  to  look  upon  every  kind  of  cruelty 
with  fiery  detestation. 

Boys,  if  you  do  not  hate  evil  when  you 
are  young,  you  are  not  likely  to  hate  it 
when  you  are  men.  You  will  compromise 
with  it  and  raise  plausible  excuses  for  it. 
His  hatred  of  evil  was  matched  by  his  burn- 
ing love  for  everything  that  was  beautiful 
and  good.  He  loved  men.  He  pitied 
[139] 


THE  SILENT  YEARS 
them.  He  sympathized  with  them.  He 
loved  them  with  a  love  which  even  the 
meanest  of  men  could  not  break  down.  No 
matter  what  men  said  about  him  or  did 
against  him,  they  could  not  turn  him  sour. 
He  was  sweet  to  the  very  center  of  his  heart. 
When  the  soldiers  drove  the  nails  through 
his  hands  he  said,  "  Father,  forgive  them, 
for  they  know  not  what  they  do." 

To  put  it  all  in  a  sentence,  Jesus  had  in 
the  silent  years  built  up  a  character  that  is 
the  wonder  and  admiration  of  the  world. 
Inside  that  garden,  surrounded  by  the  hedge 
of  silence,  there  had  grown  and  blossomed 
in  these  hidden  years  a  flower  of  paradise 
whose  fragrance  has  filled  all  the  world. 
In  the  dingy  shop  in  little  Nazareth  there 
had  been  crystallized  a  character  which  to 
the  end  of  time  shall  be  the  model  and  ideal 
of  our  race.  And  so,  even  though  the  New 
Testament  does  not  tell  us  in  so  many  words 
[140] 


THE  SILENT  YEARS 
what  Jesus  thought  and  said  and  did,  in  the 
thirty  years  which  preceded  his  baptism  in 
the  river  Jordan,  we  know  substantially 
everything  of  value  which  took  place,  for 
the  three  years  of  recorded  life  are  but  the 
unfolding  and  interpretation  of  the  years 
which  were  hidden. 

And  what  is  the  lesson  for  to-day?  Boys 
and  girls  don't  overlook  yourselves.  In  the 
New  Testament  the  big  folks  overlook  the 
little  folks.  That  is  bad,  but  it  is  still  worse 
for  the  little  folks  to  overlook  themselves. 
Do  not  think  for  a  moment  that  you  are 
only  getting  ready  to  live;  you  are  living 
now.  Do  not  imagine  you  are  getting 
ready  to  do  some  big  thing  later  on.  What 
is  a  big  thing,  the  biggest  thing  which  one 
can  do  in  this  world?  Is  it  keeping  a 
store,  or  making  a  lot  of  money,  or  arguing 
a  case  before  a  jury,  or  preaching  a  sermon, 
or  publishing  a  paper,  or  making  a  book, 
[Hi] 


THE   SILENT  YEARS 
or  healing  sick  people?     No,  no,  no;  the 
biggest  thing  which  any  one  can  do  in  this 
world  is  to  build  up  his  soul,  and  that  is 
what  you  are  doing  now. 

You  are  forming  habits.  Be  careful  not 
to  form  any  which  you  will  have  to  fight  in 
your  later  years.  Jesus  never  formed  a 
habit  which  caused  him  trouble  after  thirty. 
Would  to  God  we  older  people  could  all 
say  that  of  ourselves.  Many  a  man  is 
harassed  and  tormented  all  his  after  life  by 
habits  formed  before  he  was  thirty.  An 
evil  habit  is  like  a  tiger  lying  at  the  door. 
Every  now  and  then  it  springs,  and  the  man 
must  fight  with  it,  losing  time  and  strength 
and  blood! 

Now  is  the  time  to  let  the  convictions 
form  which  shall  hold  you  through  the 
storms  of  the  sea.  Thousands  of  men  are 
like  so  much  sea-weed,  rising  and  falling 
with  the  tide,  drifting  with  the  current  be- 
[142] 


THE    SILENT   YEARS 
cause  they  are  without  convictions.     What 
is    sea-weed   worth    in   the   making   of   a 
world? 

In  these  silent  years  certain  dispositions 
are  taking  shape  which  will  color  all  the 
years  which  are  to  come.  Many  a  man  and 
woman  here  this  morning  is  unhappy,  los- 
ing out  of  life  the  best  things  which  life 
has  to  give,  all  because  in  the  silent  years 
dispositions  were  allowed  to  grow  which 
were  contrary  to  the  mind  of  Jesus. 

These  are  the  years  in  which  you  are  to 
decide  what  you  are  going  to  do.  Now  is 
the  time  to  frame  your  plan.  Jesus  had  his 
plan  completed  at  the  age  of  thirty.  From 
the  hour  of  his  baptism  onward  he  never 
wavered,  hesitated,  or  doubled  back  upon 
his  track.  Men  tried  their  best  to  hasten 
him,  retard  him,  or  turn  him  aside,  but 
every  time  he  pushed  steadily  forward  say- 
ing— "I  must!"  He  accomplished  much 
[i43] 


THE  SILENT  YEARS 
because  he  lost  no  time  in  retracing  his 
steps.  The  men  who  have  no  plan  are  the 
men  who  march  bravely  up  a  hill  and  then 
march  down  again.  They  go  forward  for 
a  mile,  and  retrace  their  course  because 
their  purpose  is  uncertain.  They  go  in  a 
roundabout  way,  losing  strength  and  time, 
when  they  could  have  cut  across  lots,  had 
they  carried  in  their  eye  a  goal. 

If  you  want  to  quadruple  the  length  of 
your  life  decide  early  what  you  are  going 
to  do.  A  plan  is  the  greatest  of  time-savers. 
The  public  life  of  Jesus  was  only  three 
years  long,  but  so  much  was  accomplished 
that  we  forget  how  short  it  was.  When  we 
hear  the  name  of  Methuselah  we  think  how 
long  he  lived ;  there  is  nothing  else  to  think 
about.  (But  when  we  hear  the  name  of 
Jesus  we  do  not  think  of  the  number  of  his 
years,  but  of  the  mighty  work  which  he  ac- 
complished. Every  stroke  counted,  every 


THE  SILENT  YEARS 
word  told,  every  effort  deepened  the  im- 
pression, and  widened  the  influence,  so  that 
at  the  end  of  his  brief  life  he  could  say:  "  I 
have  finished  the  work  which  thou  gavest 
me  to  do." 

In  the  silent  years  the  roots  of  the  soul 
established  themselves  in  the  soil.  Some 
men  are  always  surprising  us;  they  do  better 
than  we  thought  they  would,  because  they 
were  better  rooted  than  we  knew.  Other 
men  are  always  disappointing  us.  They 
never  come  up  to  expectations,  because  in 
the  silent  years  the  growth  of  the  roots  was 
interfered  with  and  stunted.  The  little  oak 
is  scarcely  noticed  standing  among  the 
beeches  and  birches  and  poplars  and  pines. 
Through  ten  and  twenty  years  it  goes  on 
growing,  but  its  progress  is  silent  and  its 
glory  is  hidden.  But  slowly  through  the 
century,  while  its  neighbors  fall  and  perish, 
it  rises  and  spreads  until  every  traveler  who 


THE   SILENT  YEARS 
passes  that  way  stops  and  exclaims:  "What 
a  magnificent  tree!" 

Boys  and  girls,  I  urge  you  to  remem- 
ber this: — The  so-called  unrecorded  years 
are  every  one  recorded,  the  silent  years  will 
some  day  surely  speak,  and  everything 
which  is  hidden  will  some  time,  if  not  here 
then  yonder,  burst  upon  the  eyes  of  men  and 
of  God  1 


1 146 1 


VII 
WORK 

Is    not   this    the    carpenter?  " 

MARK  6:  3. 

Preached  Sunday  Morning 
May  13,   1906 


WORK 

THEY  were  looking  at  Jesus  when 
they  asked  the  question.  The  ques- 
tion was  asked  by  some  people  in 
Nazareth.  Jesus  has  been  speaking  in  the 
synagogue.  He  has  taken  a  piece  of  Scrip- 
ture and  unfolded  it  and  explained  it  and 
illustrated  it,  and  gotten  light  out  of  it, 
and  the  people  of  Nazareth  are  astonished. 
They  begin  to  ask  questions :  "  Is  not  this 
the  carpenter?  the  son  of  Mary  and  brother 
of  James  and  Joses  and  Judas  and  Simon? 
and  are  not  his  sisters  here  with  us?  And 
they  were  offended  in  him."  They  do  not 
like  him.  They  shut  their  hearts  against 
him.  They  refuse  to  listen  to  him  and  to 
do  the  things  which  he  says. 

"  Is  not  this  the  carpenter?"    This  is  an 
illuminating  question.     It  throws  light,  and 
[i49] 


WORK 

it  throws  the  light  in  two  directions.  When 
you  hold  up  a  lamp  or  lantern  in  order  to 
see  the  face  of  some  one  approaching  you 
in  the  dark,  you  light  up,  not  only  the  face 
of  the  person  approaching  you,  but  you 
light  up  your  own  face  as  well.  When 
these  people  ask  the  question,  "  Is  not  this 
the  carpenter?  "  they  light  up  their  own 
faces  and  also  the  face  of  Jesus. 

The  question  shows  us  that  these  men  in 
Nazareth  thought  that  one  can  account  for 
a  man  simply  by  knowing  his  parents  and 
brothers  and  sisters.  There  was  nothing 
wonderful  in  Joseph  nor  anything  extraor- 
dinary in  Mary,  and  therefore  there  could 
be  nothing  great  in  Jesus  1  But  in  reason- 
ing thus  these  people  were  mistaken.  There 
was  nothing  wonderful  about  the  parents 
of  Mohammed,  or  of  Luther,  or  of  Goethe, 
or  of  Shakespeare.  You  cannot  tell  what  a 
man  is  simply  by  knowing  what  his  parents 
[150] 


WORK 

were.  God  has  something  to  do  with  the 
making  of  a  man.  These  people  in  Naza- 
reth supposed  that  under  equal  circum- 
stances characters  must  be  equal.  They 
adopted  the  principle  that  one  child  must 
be  as  bright  as  another,  and  that  one  boy 
must  be  as  good  as  another  if  they  grow  up 
in  the  same  home.  All  of  which  is  of 
course  an  error.  These  people  overesti- 
mated the  importance  of  circumstances  and 
forgot  that  God  has  something  to  do  with 
the  making  of  a  man.  Their  great  mis- 
take was  that  they  left  out  God. 

Their  question  would  further  indicate 
that  in  their  judgment  a  man  could  not 
know  much  who  never  went  away  to  school. 
Jesus  had  never  gone  to  college  in  Jeru- 
salem, he  had  not  even  attended  the  High 
School  in  Capernaum.  He  had  had  no  ad- 
vantages other  than  those  afforded  him  in 
the  humble  school  in  Nazareth.  It  was 


WORK 

preposterous,  so  they  thought,  that  a  man 
who  had  never  been  to  college  should  be 
able  to  instruct  others — and  here  again  they 
were  wrong.  It  is  not  necessary  for  every 
man  to  go  to  school  in  order  to  be  wise. 
Charlemagne  was  one  of  the  greatest  men 
that  ever  lived,  but  he  could  not  sign  his 
own  name.  God,  as  well  as  a  'school,  has 
something  to  do  with  the  making  of  a  man, 
and  these  people  in  Nazareth  left  out  God. 
These  men  in  Nazareth  also  took  it  for 
granted  that  a  mechanic  has  no  right  to  talk 
to  his  fellowmen  about  the  high  and  deep 
things  of  the  soul.  Is  not  this  the  car- 
penter? the  artisan,  the  mechanic,  the 
manual  laborer?  What  right  has  he  to 
claim  to  know  things  about  God  and  the 
soul,  duty  and  eternity,  which  other  men  do 
not  know?  And  so  they  were  offended  in 
him.  They  were  indignant  at  him  because 
he  explained  to  them  the  Scriptures. 
[152] 


WORK 

And  thus  we  see  that  these  people  in 
Nazareth  were  narrow  and  shallow  and 
foolish  and  mistaken,  but  let  us  not  be  too 
hard  on  them,  for  they  were  not  much  dif- 
ferent from  us.  Some  of  us  have  some- 
times felt  that  if  we  had  only  lived  in  Pales- 
tine when  Jesus  lived  and  taught,  we 
should  certainly  have  become  his  disciples, 
and  found  it  easy  to  do  his  bidding.  In 
thinking  thus,  however,  we  are  mistaken. 
It  is  much  easier  to  believe  in  Jesus  at  the 
distance  of  1900  years  than  it  would  have 
been  had  we  been  permitted  to  hear  him 
teach  in  Nazareth  and  Capernaum.  The 
fact  that  he  was  a  carpenter  would  have 
offended  us  very  much.  There  are  certain 
people  who  have  a  right  to  teach  us,  and 
when  they  speak  we  gladly  listen.  We 
look  up  to  college  presidents,  and  college 
professors,  and  editors,  and  statesmen,  and 
generals  and  poets,  and  philosophers  and 
[153] 


WORK 

scientists,  but  which  one  of  us  would  be 
willing  to  listen  to  a  mechanic,  especially  if 
he  should  set  himself  up  as  one  better  fitted 
than  anybody  else  to  tell  us  who  God  is  and 
how  best  the  soul  can  come  into  harmony 
with  him?  Not  one  of  us  would  have  be- 
lieved in  Jesus  had  we  lived  in  Palestine 
nineteen  centuries  ago. 

But  it  is  with  Jesus  and  not  with  these 
questioning  villagers  that  we  are  concerned 
to-day.  Upon  the  face  of  Jesus  this  ques- 
tion throws  a  wondrous  light.  It  reveals 
something  nowhere  else  revealed  in  all  the 
Scriptures.  There  is  not  a  sentence  in  the 
Old  Testament  that  even  intimates  that  the 
Messiah  of  the  world  would  be  a  carpenter. 
There  is  not  a  sentence  in  Matthew,  Luke 
or  John,  or  in  any  of  the  letters  of  St.  Paul, 
which  tells  us  that  Jesus  was  a  carpenter. 
There  is  only  one  sentence  in  all  the  Bible 
that  tells  us  this  interesting  fact,  and  that 
[i54] 


WORK 

sentence  is  the  sentence  which  I  have  chosen 
for  my  text.  I  have  taken  it  for  my  text 
because  I  feared  that  some  of  you  might  not 
see  it. 

The  fact  is,  many  people  read  the  Scrip- 
tures and  miss  this  sentence  altogether. 
They  see  that  Jesus  is  a  prophet  and  a  priest 
and  a  king,  but  they  do  not  see  that  he  is  a 
carpenter.  They  glory  in  the  fact  that  he 
is  the  teacher,  the  physician  and  the  good 
shepherd,  but  they  find  no  joy  in  the  fact 
that  he  is  the  carpenter.  If  you  should 
make  out  this  afternoon  a  list  of  all  the 
names  by  which  Jesus  is  known  in  the 
Scriptures  you  would  write  down  the  Lily 
of  the  Valley,  the  Bright  and  Morning 
Star,  the  Alpha  and  Omega,  the  Rock,  the 
Way,  the  Truth,  the  Life,  the  Door,  the 
Living  Water,  the  Bread  of  Heaven,  but 
your  list  would  not  be  complete  if  you  did 
not  head  it  with  the  "  Carpenter." 
[i55] 


WORK 

Even  learned  men  who  have  given  their 
lives  to  the  study  of  the  Scriptures  have  not 
gotten  their  eyes  upon  my  text.  Not  long 
ago  I  looked  through  a  large  number  of 
"  Lives  of  Jesus,"  written  by  some  of  the 
greatest  scholars  of  the  last  hundred  years, 
and  I  discovered  that  while  they  had  many 
things  to  say  about  the  birth  of  Jesus,  and 
about  his  appearance  in  the  Temple  at  the 
age  of  twelve,  they  almost  all  passed  at  once 
from  his  visit  to  Jerusalem  to  his  appear- 
ance at  the  Jordan  to  be  baptized  of  John. 
O,  learned  men  who  write  the  life  of  the 
Son  of  God,  you  ought  not  to  forget  to  tell 
us  that  he  was  a  carpenter! 

If  the  scholars  overlook  my  text  it  is  not 
surprising  that  so  many  members  of  the 
church  never  find  it.  Most  Christians 
when  they  think  of  Jesus  think  of  him  as 
working  miracles,  or  preaching  mighty  ser- 
mons, or  dying  on  the  cross.  The  glory  of 
[156] 


WORK 

the  three  years  of  his  public  life  dazzles  the 
eyes  and  makes  all  the  preceding  years  seem 
dark.  But  certainly  it  is  not  wise  to  pass 
over  eighteen  years  of  Jesus7  earthly  career 
without  a  thought.  If  he  became  a  man  at 
twelve  and  died  at  thirty-three  his  adult 
life  covered  twenty-one  years.  Of  this 
period  six-sevenths  was  spent  in  a  carpen- 
ter's shop,  and  one  seventh  was  spent  in 
teaching.  What  right  have  we  to  ignore 
six-sevenths  of  Jesus'  mature  life?  When 
Jesus  at  the  age  of  twelve  said,  "Wist  ye 
not  that  I  must  be  about  my  Father's  busi- 
ness?" he  passed  at  once  into  the  carpen- 
ter's shop  at  Nazareth,  where  he  worked 
for  eighteen  years. 

Through  all  that  period  he  was  about  his 
Father's  business,  and  certainly  there  are 
lessons  in  that  business  for  us  every  one. 
We  lose  much  comfort  by  going  so  seldom 
back  to  Nazareth.  We  like  to  think  that 
[i57] 


WORK 

Jesus  is  our  pattern  and  example,  but  some- 
times the  pattern  seems  so  glorious  and  the 
example  so  lofty  that  we  cannot  follow  it. 
Why  not  go  back  to  Nazareth  and  see  the 
life  which  Jesus  lived  before  he  became  a 
teacher?  In  those  eighteen  years,  so  far  as 
we  are  told,  he  did  nothing  wonderful,  said 
nothing  marvelous.  He  lived  a  quiet, 
uneventful,  humdrum  life — just  such  a  life 
as  the  most  of  us  must  always  live.  He 
worked  at  his  humble  trade,  earning  money 
with  which  to  buy  bread  and  meat  and 
clothes. 

In  those  years  it  was  necessary  for  him  to 
pay  the  taxes  and  repair  the  roof  and  to 
make  the  garden  and  to  do  a  thousand  other 
insignificant  and  trifling  things  which 
make  up  the  bulk  of  ordinary  life.  Year 
after  year  he  followed  the  routine  round  of 
prosaic  duty,  simply  content  to  be  about  his 
Father's  business.  When,  therefore,  you 
[158] 


WORK 

feel  that  your  life  amounts  to  little,  when 
the  world  grows  gray  and  your  task  loses  its 
sparkle,  do  not  become  discouraged,  but 
looking  unto  Jesus,  the  author  and  finisher 
of  your  faith,  say  to  yourself:  "  This  is  the 
carpenter." 

Is  not  this  the  carpenter?  the  mechanic? 
the  workman?  Let  us  think  of  him  this 
morning  as  a  worker,  not  a  brain  worker, 
nor  a  heart  worker,  but  simply  a  manual 
laborer.  All  the  wise  books  which  I  have 
ever  read  agree  in  praising  work.  They  all 
unite  in  condemning  idleness.  In  all  of 
them  sloth  is  a  cardinal  sin.  All  sorts  of 
harsh  and  ugly  things  are  said  about  the 
idler. 

Only  the  other  day  I  noticed  that  Mr. 
John  Burroughs,  one  of  the  wisest  old  men 
now  alive,  declares  that  "  the  all  important 
thing  is  not  health,  money,  friends,  fame, 
power,  knowledge,  rest,  but  the  best  thing 
[i59] 


WORK 

for  a  man  is  that  which  keeps  the  currents 
going.  The  secret  of  happiness  is  something 
to  do."  That  is  the  way  wise  men  have 
been  talking  from  the  beginning.  But  not- 
withstanding all  the  eulogies  which  wise 
men  have  pronounced  upon  labor,  a  surpris- 
ingly large  number  of  people  do  not  like  to 
work.  Some  will  not  work  at  all.  They 
would  rather  steal  than  work.  They  are 
loafers  and  shirks  and  parasites.  Some  pre- 
tend to  work  and  go  through  the  motions  of 
working  when  they  are  not  working  at  all. 
It  is  easy  for  a  boy  to  keep  the  text  book 
open  before  him  while  his  mind  is  down  in 
the  street  playing.  A  lot  of  grown  people 
pretend  to  work  just  in  that  way.  There 
are  many  persons  who,  while  they  are  will- 
ing to  do  things  which  are  in  their  opinion 
up  to  the  level  of  their  dignity,  have  a  great 
contempt  for  manual  labor.  Working 
with  one's  hands  is  something,  so  they  think, 
[160] 


WORK 

low  and  menial  and  almost  disgraceful. 
Such  people  speak  of  the  laboring  classes 
with  a  sneer  on  their  lip.  They  talk  of 
laboring  men  as  though  laboring  men  were 
hardly  human  at  all.  Did  you  never  hear 
finely  dressed  ladies  speaking  of  working 
girls  as  though  working  girls  belong  almost 
to  a  disgraced  and  disreputable  class?  It 
is  a  good  thing  for  every  person  who  wants 
to  be  a  Christian  to  sit  down  with  the  Bible 
and  try  to  find  out  just  what  God  thinks 
of  work. 

There  is  no  doubt  as  to  what  the  Hebrews 
thought  of  it  from  the  very  beginning  of 
their  history.  The  Old  Testament  Scrip- 
tures dignify  toil,  eulogize  it,  glorify  it, 
crown  it  with  many  crowns.  The  prophets, 
one  after  another,  pour  upon  idleness  the 
vials  of  their  wrath  and  their  scorn. 
Many  hard  things  may  be  said  about  the 
Jew,  but  nobody  can  rightfully  accuse  him 
[161] 


WORK 

of  laziness.  Wherever  you  find  him  he  is 
up  early  in  the  morning  and  stays  up  late 
at  night,  and  the  only  men  who  can  suc- 
cessfully compete  with  him  in  any  field  of 
activity  are  men  who  are  willing  to  do  a 
prodigious  amount  of  labor.  It  was  cus- 
tomary among  the  Hebrews  for  every  boy 
to  learn  a  trade. 

The  Hebrews  were  not  afraid  to  work 
with  their  hands.  Jesus  himself  learned 
the  trade  of  Joseph.  Year  after  year  he 
worked  in  the  carpenter  shop  at  Nazareth. 
Those  wonderful  hands  of  his,  with  which 
he  touched  the  eyes  of  the  blind  and  cooled 
the  fevered  brow  of  the  sick  and  brought 
healing  to  the  flesh  of  the  leper,  were 
the  hands  of  a  mechanic  who  had  toiled 
year  after  year  in  an  obscure  little  shop 
making  things  that  were  useful  in  men's 
homes. 

Probably  all  of  Jesus'  apostles  were 
[162] 


WORK 

manual  laborers  except  Matthew.  We 
are  told  expressly  that  Paul,  the  greatest 
of  them  all,  earned  his  living  by  working 
with  his  hands.  Again  and  again  in  his 
letters  Paul  calls  attention  to  the  fact  that 
he  has  earned  his  own  living  by  manual 
labor.  He  was  not  ashamed  of  it  either. 
He  seems  to  have  been  proud  of  his  hands 
because  the  haircloth  had  blackened  them 
and  the  thread  had  left  its  marks  on  them. 
Listen  to  him  as  he  says  to  the  elders  of 
Ephesus,  who  met  him  down  on  the  sea 
coast  at  Miletus:  "Ye  yourselves  know 
that  these  hands  have  ministered  unto  my 
necessities  and  to  them  that  were  with  me." 
The  sight  of  his  hands  drew  them  to  him 
and  made  them  love  him  all  the  more. 
After  he  had  prayed  with  them  they  fell 
on  his  neck  and  kissed  him — strong  men 
sobbing  because  they  were  to  see  his  face 
no  more.  These  are  two  facts,  then,  never 
[163] 


WORK 

to  be  forgotten,  that  Jesus,  the  founder  of 
the  Christian  religion,  was  a  manual  la- 
borer, and  the  pierced  hands  into  which  he 
will  gather  the  lives  of  nations  and  men 
are  hands  that  have  been  disciplined  by 
toil.  Paul,  the  apostle,  who  did  more  for 
Christianity  than  any  other  man  who  has 
ever  lived,  also  was  a  manual  laborer,  and 
the  hands  with  which  he  grips  the  heart 
strings  of  the  world  are  hands  that  have 
been  stained  by  toil. 

If  you  want,  therefore,  to  be  a  Christian 
you  cannot  despise  the  laboring  classes. 
If  you  wish  to  follow  Jesus  you  can  never 
speak  contemptuously  of  manual  labor. 
The  man  who  feels  scorn  or  contempt  for 
the  hand  workers  of  the  world  is  nothing 
but  a  snob  or  a  perfumed  barbarian,  even 
though  he  wears  a  high  silk  hat  and  gets  his 
boots  blacked  by  the  boot-black  every 
morning! 

[164] 


WORK 

These,  then,  are  the  lessons  for  to-day. 
Make  up  your  mind  that  you  are  going  to 
be  workers.  There  are  many  things 
which  you  cannot  do,  but  there  is  one  thing 
which  everybody  can  do,  and  that  is  work. 
Ralph  Waldo  Emerson  used  to  get  great 
comfort  out  of  this  fact.  He  said  that  if 
people  told  him  that  he  had  no  genius  then 
he  would  work  the  harder;  that  if  they 
told  him  he  had  no  virtue  that  he  would 
then  go  home  and  work  still  the  harder. 
Flee  idleness  as  one  of  the  most  dangerous 
of  all  sins.  Count  it  a  disgrace  to  be  lazy. 
Pity  no  man  so  much  as  the  man  who  has 
nothing  to  do.  If  you  want  to  be  healthy, 
if  you  want  to  be  happy,  if  you  want  to  be 
useful,  then  you  must  work. 

Never  be  ashamed  to  work  with  your 

hands.     Many  of  you  will  never  be  called 

to  do  this,  but  should  that  be  your  calling, 

do  not  shirk  it  or  be  ashamed  of  it.     In 

[165] 


WORK 

one  of  Jesus'  parables  there  is  a  man  who 
says:  "I  cannot  dig."  He  was  a  great 
cheat.  He  was  lying  when  he  said  he 
could  not  dig.  It  would  have  been  far 
better  for  him  to  dig  than  to  do  the  things 
which  he  had  been  doing  and  the  thing 
which  he  proposed  to  do.  Many  men 
would  be  far  better  off  if  they  were  dig- 
ging to-day. 

Boys  sometimes  get  the  idea  that  they 
are  disgraced  if  they  do  not  enter  one  of 
the  professions.  The  result  is  that  some 
of  the  professions  are  greatly  overcrowded 
and  other  fields  of  activity  are  crying  for 
men.  A  lot  of  young  men  are  starving  in 
the  professions  who  would  have  made  a 
good  living  if  they  had  only  been  willing  to 
dig.  Digging  hurts  no  one,  nor  is  it  ever 
a  disgrace. 

Marcus  Aurelius  was,  according  to  all 
good  judges,  one  of  the  wisest  men  who 
[166] 


WORK 

have  ever  lived.  In  thinking  over  his  life 
he  said  he  had  enjoyed  three  supreme  ad- 
vantages. As  a  youth  he  had  been  taught 
to  endure  hardness,  to  work  with  his  handsr 
and  to  mind  his  own  business.  Fortunate 
is  the  boy  who  like  Marcus  Aurelius  has 
been  taught  early  to  work  with  his  hands. 
Nor  should  the  girls  be  overlooked  at 
this  point,  for  girls  as  well  as  boys  should 
be  trained  to  do  things  with  their  hands. 
It  hurts  no  girl  to  work  in  the  kitchen  or 
to  do  the  various  kinds  of  work  which 
must  be  done  in  a  house.  One  of  the  rea- 
sons why  the  servant  problem  has  become 
so  baffling  in  America  is  because  there  has 
been  too  much  of  the  old  barbarian  spirit 
in  our  American  families,  which  looks 
down  on  housework  as  something  degrad- 
ing, and  upon  servants  as  an  inferior  class 
of  creatures.  Many  an  American  girl  has 
been  brought  up  to  speak  impudently  or 


WORK 

disrespectfully  to  the  servants,  and  to 
imagine  that  her  accomplishments  were 
complete  if  she  could  paint  a  little  or  play 
upon  the  piano.  Whenever  the  girl  at  the 
piano  has  nothing  but  contempt  for  the 
girl  who  washes  the  dishes,  the  girl  who 
washes  the  dishes  will  have  nothing  but 
envy  for  the  girl  who  plays  the  piano. 
With  envy  and  contempt  everything  is 
spoiled. 

No  human  being  is  to  be  scorned  be- 
cause he  or  she  is  a  servant.  The  word 
servant  is  a  beautiful  word.  Christ  has 
redeemed  it.  He  has  told  us  that  all  his 
followers  must  call  themselves  servants. 
"  It  is  enough  for  the  disciple  that  he  be 
as  his  Master,  and  the  servant  as  his  Lord." 
If  any  one  of  us  wishes  to  be  really  great 
then  he  must  become  the  servant  of  all.  It 
is  not  necessary  that  all  girls  should  work 
in  the  kitchen  or  that  all  girls  should  give 
[168] 


WORK 

the  bulk  of  their  time  to  doing  the  work 
of  the  house,  but  every  American  girl 
ought  to  be  trained  to  do  three  things: 
sew  a  seam  beautifully,  cook  a  beefsteak 
superbly,  and  bake  a  perfect  loaf  of  bread. 
If  a  girl  has  not  learned  how  to  do  these 
three  things  before  she  is  twenty  she  has 
not  been  properly  trained. 

In  certain  royal  families  in  Europe  all 
the  boys  are  taught  trades  and  the  girls 
are  trained  to  do  housework.  The  world 
has  never  had  a  grander  queen  than  Queen 
Victoria,  or  one  more  universally  loved, 
and  it  was  one  of  the  crowning  glories  of 
Queen  Victoria  that  when  a  girl  she  had 
been  carefully  trained  to  do  the  work  of 
the  house,  and  that  she  brought  up  all  her 
daughters  in  the  same  sensible  and  Chris- 
tian way. 

Never   look   down   on   those  who   are 
called  to  work  with  their  hands.     Hand 
[169] 


WORK 

work  is  necessary  and  therefore  it  is  honor- 
able; it  is  ordained  of  God  and  therefore 
let  no  man  despise  it.  But  it  is  not  the 
only  necessary  work  in  the  world.  Brain 
work  is  also  necessary.  Hand  workers 
often  forget  this.  They  speak  oftentimes 
as  though  they  were  the  only  workers  in 
the  world,  as  though  men  who  did  not 
work  with  their  hands  are  only  loafers  and 
idlers. 

The  fact  is,  brain  workers  are  just  as 
essential  to  .this  world  as  hand  workers. 
The  world  cannot  get  on  without  either 
class.  In  the  building  of  this  church  the 
work  was  not  all  done  by  men  who  wore 
overalls  and  whose  garments  were  bespat- 
tered with  mortar.  There  was  an  im- 
mense amount  of  brain  work  done  before 
the  walls  went  up  or  even  the  foundations 
were  laid.  The  roof  was  put  up  by  the 
brain  before  it  was  put  up  by  the  hands, 
[170] 


WORK 

and  all  sorts  of  interesting  mathematical 
computations  and  calculations  were  made 
before  the  great  tower  finally  rose  into  the 
air. 

Let  no  hand  worker  despise  the  man 
who  works  with  his  brain,  and  let  no  brain 
worker  despise  the  man  who  works  with 
his  hands.  Manual  labor  is  essential  to 
civilization.  Suppose  there  were  no  one 
willing  to  wash  the  windows,  and  suppose 
there  were  no  one  willing  to  scrub  the 
floors.  Think  of  the  work  of  setting  the 
tables  for  four  millions  of  people  in  this 
city  every  day,  and  think  of  all  the 
drudgery  of  the  cooking  and  the  washing 
of  dishes  necessary  for  so  great  a  feast. 
Honor  to  the  men  and  women  who  do  this 
great  work.  Hand  workers  are  not  to  be 
despised,  moreover,  because  even  though 
they  work  with  their  hands  they  may  still 
be  using  their  minds. 

[171] 


WORK 

Some  of  the  sanest  and  best  thinking  of 
the  world  is  done  by  men  who  work  with 
their  hands,  and  some  of  the  most  morbid 
and  crazy  thinking  which  is  done  is  done 
by  men  who  spend  their  lives  among  their 
books.  Mrs.  Elizabeth  Barrett  Browning 
in  "Aurora  Leigh"  tells  how  day  after 
day  she  worked  upon  her  lace  with  her 
needle,  but  even  while  her  fingers  were 
working  with  the  needle  she  says,  "  My 
soul  was  singing  at  a  work  apart  behind 
the  wall  of  sense." 

What  do  you  suppose  Paul  was  doing 
when  he  was  making  tents  out  of  the  goat 
haircloth?  He  was  working  out,  no 
doubt,  some  of  those  .great  ideas  which 
will  burn  in  the  firmament  of  thought  like 
fixed  stars  forever.  While  he  was  sewing 
a  seam  he  was  also  thinking  of  him  who 
although  being  in  the  form  of  God  made 
himself  of  no  reputation,  and  took  upon 


WORK 

him  the  form  of  a  servant  and  was  found 
in  the  fashion  of  a  man.  I  suspect  the 
best  things  in  Paul's  letters  were  all 
worked  out  when  he  was  working  with  his 
hands. 

And  who  knows  but  that  Jesus  may  have 
done  some  of  his  greatest  intellectual  work 
in  the  carpenter  shop  at  Nazareth?  All 
the  critics  say  that  his  language  is  fault- 
less, his  parables  are  gems  unsurpassed  and 
unsurpassable.  Do  you  suppose  he  spoke 
those  lovely  things  on  the  spur  of  the  mo- 
ment? I  do  not.  When  you  see  a  beau- 
tiful picture  you  know  that  some  artist  has 
worked  long  upon  it.  When  you  hear  an 
exquisite  song  you  know  that  the  singer 
has  given  to  it  abundant  toil.  When  you 
hear  language  that  is  chaste  and  fine  and 
forceful  you  may  rest  assured  that  the  per- 
son who  speaks  the  language  has  given 
days  and  nights  to  the  conquest  of  his  ad- 
[i73] 


WORK 

jectives  and  adverbs,  and  to  the  perfecting 
of  that  high  and  difficult  art  of  weaving 
words  into  a  texture  which  shall  allure  and 
captivate  the  minds  and  hearts  of  men. 

When  his  fellow-townsmen  said, 
"Whence  hath  this  man  all  these  things?" 
Jesus  might,  I  think,  have  made  this  an- 
swer: "I  got  them  in  the  carpenter 
shop."  Not  only  may  hand-workers  be 
sound  thinkers,  but  they  may  also  be  men 
and  women  of  quality.  Quality  never  de- 
pends on  clothes,  or  rank,  or  station ;  it  is  a 
matter  of  the  heart  only.  Who  is  a  man 
of  quality?  The  so-called  gentleman  who 
moves  in  the  highest  circles  and  who  is 
selfish,  coarse,  boorish,  brutal — or  the  man 
who  wears  the  mechanic's  garb  and  who 
beneath  his  coarse  coat  has  a  heart  that  is 
sympathetic  and  tender? 

Persons  of  quality,  who  are  they?  They 
are  people  who  exercise  self-denial  and 


WORK 

self-control  and  self-sacrifice,  and  they  are 
found  just  as  frequently  in  the  cottage  as 
they  are  found  in  the  palace.  Some  of  the 
gentlest  and  sweetest  and  wisest  and  great- 
est and  loftiest  souls  in  the  world  are  to  be 
found  in  humble  and  obscure  places  doing 
work  which  wins  no  applause,  and  only 
the  'most  meager  rewards.  Jesus  was  a 
man  of  quality.  He  was  earth's  finest  gen- 
tleman. As  Ruskin  has  pointed  out — A 
gentleman  has  two  characteristics:  he  is 
sensitive  and  sympathetic.  And  where 
will  you  find  feeling  more  sensitive  or 
more  sympathetic  than  in  the  simple  car- 
penter of  Nazareth? 

In  the  Louvre  in  Paris  there  is  a  famous 
painting  by  Murillo.  It  is  entitled,  "  The 
Miracle  of  San  Diego."  A  door  opens 
and  two  noblemen  and  a  priest  enter  a 
kitchen.  They  are  amazed  to  find  that  all 
the  kitchen  maids  are  angels.  One  is 
[i75] 


WORK 

handling  a  watering  pot,  another  a  joint  of 
meat,  a  third  a  basket  of  vegetables,  a 
fourth  is  tending  the  fire.  The  thought  of 
the  artist  is  that  it  is  in  toil  and  drudgery 
we  develop  qualities  which  are  celestial. 


[176] 


VIII 
THE   WILL 

I  will."  MARK  i :  41. 

Preached  Sunday  Morning 

May   12,   1907 


Mr. 


?i 


THE  WILL 

THE  first  glimpse  which  we  catch  of 
Jesus  as  a  man  is  that  which  we 
get  of  him  at  the  river  Jordan  on 
the  day  on  which  he  was  baptized. 
A  great  preacher  has  appeared  at  the 
Jordan,  calling  on  men  to  turn  away  from 
their  sins.  He  urges  them  to  show  their 
desire  to  do  God's  will  by  submitting  to 
the  ceremony  of  baptism.  His  voice  has 
something  in  it  which  smites  and  pierces, 
and  many,  obedient  to  his  word,  are  bap- 
tized. All  sorts  of  men  come,  rich  and 
poor,  high  and  low,  young  and  old,  good 
and  bad,  fishermen  and  farmers,  sailors 
and  soldiers,  shepherds  and  merchants, 
masons  and  vineyard  dressers,  publicans 
and  common  laborers,  and  not  one  of  them 
[i79] 


THE  WILL 

is  turned  away.    The  exhortation  is  for  all, 
and  whoever  comes  is  received. 

But  all  at  once  something  happens. 
The  procession  is  halted.  The  work  of 
baptizing  ceases.  Every  one  stands  as- 
tounded. A  man  has  appeared  whom  the 
great  preacher  will  not  baptize.  "No, 
no,"  he  says,  "  I  cannot  do  it,  it  is  not  fit- 
ting that  I  should  do  it,  I  must  decline  to 
do  it,  for  I  am  the  one  who  ought  to  be 
baptized  by  you!"  But  the  stranger, 
brushing  aside  all  the  arguments  and  pro- 
testations of  the  preacher,  quietly  insists 
on  being  dealt  with  as  the  other  men  have 
been,  and  the  stalwart,  iron-willed 
preacher  speedily  succumbs.  Here  is  a 
man  against  whom  he  cannot  stand. 
Shaken  from  his  resolution  he  proceeds  to 
do  what  the  stranger  says  he  ought  to  do, 
and  thus  it  was  that  Jesus  of  Nazareth  en- 
tered upon  his  public  career.  It  is  worth 
[180] 


THE  WILL 

while  remembering  that  the  first  sunbeam 
which  falls  upon  the  man  Jesus  reveals  to 
us  in  him  the  trait  of  steadfastness,  or 
tenacious  resolution.  At  the  very  start  he 
meets  with  opposition;  the  opposition 
melts  and  the  man  of  Galilee  is  allowed  to 
have  his  way. 

In  the  first  hour  we  are  in  the  presence 
of  a  man  of  firm  decision,  and  the  impres- 
sion of  the  first  hour  is  deepened  as  we  pro- 
ceed. Let  us  think  then  this  morning  about 
the  Will,  and  you  may  mark  as  the  text  just 
two  words  recorded  in  the  forty-first  verse 
of  the  first  chapter  of  the  Gospel  according 
to  St.  Mark,  "  I  will." 

The  life  of  Jesus  was  lived  from  first  to 
last  in  the  teeth  of  great  and  increasing  op- 
position. He  was  obliged  to  fight  his  way 
step  by  step.  Obstacles  were  piled  up  be- 
fore Him,  and  the  world  conspired  to  beat 
Him  back  or  drive  Him  from  His  course. 
[181] 


THE  WILL 

As  a  teacher  He  was  resisted  at  every  point. 
Men  did  not  want  Him  to  say  the  things  He 
liked  to  say,  but  He  kept  on  saying  them,  no 
matter  how  men  hissed  and  cursed  Him. 
As  a  physician  He  was  opposed  by  men 
who  were  determined  that  He  should  not 
heal  on  the  Sabbath  and  that  He  should  not 
show  mercy  to  lepers  who  were  Samaritans. 
But  He  went  right  on  doing  the  things  for 
which  He  was  hated  and  denounced.  As  a 
member  of  society  He  left  undone  things 
which  people  insisted  on  Him  doing  and 
did  many  things  which  brought  down  upon 
Him  the  scorn  of  the  best  people  in  the 
town. 

For  instance,  all  the  best  and  most  in- 
fluential people  said:  "Do  not  associate 
with  these  publicans,  do  not  go  near  them, 
or  speak  kindly  to  them."  And  His  answer 
was,  "I  will  I"  Men  tried  to  sidetrack 
Him  in  his  teaching,  but  he  went  on  as 
[182] 


THE  WILL1 

though  he  did  not  see  them.  A  learned 
man,  Nicodemus,  came  to  Him  with  prob- 
lems which  were  uppermost  in  Nicodemus' 
mind,  and  Jesus  compelled  the  learned  man 
to  talk  about  the  things  which  were  upper- 
most in  Jesus'  mind.  An  ignorant  woman 
in  Samaria  tried  to  interest  Him  in  discus- 
sions which  were  interesting  to  Samari- 
tans, but  he  compelled  her  to  think  of  the 
things  which  were  interesting  to  Him. 

A  man  once  interrupted  Him  in  a  sermon, 
demanding  that  attention  be  given  to  some 
tangle  involving  property,  but  He  went 
right  on  talking  of  the  high  things  of  the 
Spirit  and  compelled  the  interrupter  to  go 
along  with  Him.  No  matter  who  it  was 
with  whom  He  spoke  He  constrained  that 
person  to  go  with  Him. 

If  His  enemies  could  not  move  Him,  and 
if  strangers  could  not  change  Him,  neither 
could  His  relations  and  friends.  His 
[183] 


THE  WILL 

brothers  had  their  plans  for  Him,  but  He 
refused  steadfastly  to  adopt  them.  They 
wanted  Him  to  go  to  Jerusalem  and  show 
the  big  people  there  what  a  wonderful  man 
He  was,  but  He  refused  to  go.  On  a  cer- 
tain occasion  His  brothers,  alarmed  by  His 
burning  zeal  and  incessant  labor,  wanted  to 
take  Him  back  to  Nazareth,  but  He 
thwarted  all  their  efforts. 

He  loved  His  disciples,  but  He  constantly 
resisted  them.  He  was  fond  of  His  friends 
but  they  could  not  swerve  Him  from  His 
path.  Martha  and  Mary  wanted  Him  to 
come  to  Bethany,  but  He  went  on  working 
where  He  was,  and  did  not  go  until  the 
right  hour  had  come.  Peter  tried  to  per- 
suade Him  not  to  go  to  Jerusalem,  but 
Jesus  thrust  him  aside  and  went.  The 
crowd  had  its  ambitions  and  aspirations, 
and  tried  to  sweep  Jesus  along  in  the  cur- 
rent of  its  feeling,  but  He  disappointed  the 
[184] 


THE  WILL 

crowd  and  proceeded  along  a  course  which 
He  himself  had  chosen. 

All  the  forces  of  the  world  massed  them- 
selves against  Him,  but  He  could  not  be 
checked  or  disconcerted.  He  was  subjected 
to  the  fires  of  hate,  but  He  was  not  melted. 
He  was  exposed  to  the  fires  of  love,  but  He 
did  not  yield.  The  Pharisees,  the  most 
learned  people  of  their  day,  laid  hold  on 
Him  and  pulled  at  Him,  but  they  could  not 
bend  Him;  the  Sadducees,  the  richest  peo- 
ple of  the  time,  pulled  at  Him,  but  they 
could  not  bend  Him.  The  Herodians,  an 
influential  political  party  of  that  age, 
grasped  him  and  pulled  at  Him,  but  He 
remained  inflexible  and  unconquerable. 
Winds  blew  a  hurricane  across  the  land,  but 
He  never  swayed  or  wavered.  Storms 
rushed  down  upon  Him  from  the  ravines 
of  prejudice  and  out  of  the  caves  of  hate, 
but  He  was  never  shaken  or  made  to  totter. 
[185] 


THE  WILL 

Palestine  became  an  ocean  and  the  huge  bil- 
lows dashed  against  Him,  each  billow 
shouting,  "You  shall  not  preach  your 
gospel,  you  shall  not  do  your  work!"  and 
His  reply  was — "  I  will!" 

It  is  this  unwavering  tenacity  of  purpose, 
this  unswerving  persistency  in  conduct,  this 
unfaltering  resoluteness,  this  unflinching 
determination,  this  indomitable  self-posses- 
sion and  mastery  which  awes  and  thrills 
every  one  who  comes  into  Jesus'  presence. 
He  was  a  man  of  tremendous  and  unparal- 
leled force  of  will. 

Firm  and  immovable  Himself  He  loved 
this  will-power  in  others.  His  admiration 
of  John  the  Baptist  was  keen  and  high,  de- 
claring that  no  greater  man  had  ever  been 
born  of  woman.  One  can  see  the  cause  of 
this  admiration  in  a  question  which  he  one 
day  propounded  to  a  crowd:  "Whom 
went  ye  out  to  see?  A  reed  shaken  with  the 
[186] 


THE  WILL 

wind?"  It  was  a  vivid  picture,  for  reeds 
grew  up  and  down  the  Jordan  valley  and 
along  all  the  little  streams  which  tumbled 
into  the  Dead  Sea.  They  were  tall  and 
slender,  sometimes  even  ten  and  fifteen  feet 
in  height,  and  so  thin  and  fragile  were  they 
that  they  swayed  to  and  fro  in  every  wind 
that  blew.  "  Did  you  go  out  to  see  a  reed 
shaken  with  the  wind?" 

If  you  could  have  heard  Him  say  it  you 
would  have  felt  the  heat  of  His  scorn  for  a 
fluctuating  man,  and  you  would  have 
caught  His  answer  in  the  very  tone  in  which 
He  asked  the  question.  John  was  not  a 
bending  reed,  but  a  man  inflexible  as  the 
everlasting  laws  of  God.  It  was  because  of 
this  that  Jesus  loved  him,  and  for  this  rea- 
son He  loved  also  Simon  Peter.  When  one 
day  Jesus  asked  his  disciples  who  people 
supposed  He  was,  Peter  proceeded  to  give 
the  variety  of  opinions  which  were  in  men's 
[187] 


THE  WILL 

mouths,  and  then  went  on  to  say,  "  But  all 
these  opinions  have  no  influence  on  Me!  It 
does  not  matter  what  the  Pharisees  or  the 
Scribes  or  the  Sadducees  or  the  members  of 
the  Sanhedrin  have  to  say,  I  stand  by  my 
first  convicition,  I  still  cling  to  my  earliest 
vision,  I  say  you  are  the  Messiah,  the  Son 
of  the  living  God." 

And  Jesus,  delighted  with  this  steadfast- 
ness in  a  world  swept  by  hurricanes,  said: 
"You  are  well  named,  Peter,  you  are  in- 
deed a  Rock,  and  upon  this  kind  of  rock  I 
will  build  my  church."  It  would  seem, 
then,  that  the  first  essential  in  the  building 
of  a  man  and  the  one  thing  indispensable  in 
the  building  of  a  church  is  a  steadfast 
resoluteness,  an  energizing  and  a  persistent 
will. 

I  fear  that  the  importance  of  the  will  has 
been  too  much  neglected  in  all  our  systems 
of  education.  In  the  public  schools  and  in 
[188] 


THE  WILL 

the  colleges  and  universities,  and  also  in 
our  churches,  undue  emphasis  has  been 
placed  on  other  faculties,  while  the  will  has 
been  slighted  or  completely  overlooked.  It 
has  been  a  fashion  too  often  followed,  to 
make  the  memory  the  queen  of  all  our 
mental  powers.  Pupils  have  been  ranked 
according  to  their  memory,  and  he  has 
been  counted  the  most  worthy  member  of 
the  school  who  has  had  the  faculty  of  recit- 
ing the  largest  number  of  dates,  formulas 
and  facts;  This  delusion  that  memory  is 
supreme  and  all  important  follows  many 
persons  all  through  life. 

There  are  numerous  systems  of  memory 
training,  and  men  and  women  work  like 
galley  slaves  in  their  ambition  to  perfect 
themselves  in  the  art  of  not  forgetting.  No 
wail  is  more  disconsolate  or  frequent  than 
"  My  memory  is  wretched — I  cannot  re- 
member— I  have  no  memory  at  all ! "  Yet 
[189] 


THE  WILL 

memory  is  only  one  of  the  subordinate  fac- 
ulties of  the  mind.  It  occupies  an  honor- 
able but  humble  room.  It  is  a  convenient 
and  profitable  servant,  but  it  is  one  which 
we  lose  easily  and  the  one  which  earliest  de- 
cays. The  highest  happiness  does  not  de- 
pend upon  it,  nor  is  the  destiny  of  the  soul 
determined  by  it.  If  half  the  attention 
which  has  been  given  to  the  cultivation  of 
the  memory  had  been  devoted  to  the  disci- 
pline of  the  will,  the  world  would  not  be 
what  it  is. 

There  are  others  who  are  always  extolling 
the  imagination.  It  is,  they  claim,  the 
queen  of  the  faculties.  Upon  its  develop- 
ment our  happiness  and  usefulness  in  large 
measure  depend.  Many  volumes  have  been 
written  on  the  training  of  the  imagination, 
and  schemes  have  been  carefully  worked 
out  by  which  it  may  be  built  up  and  en- 
riched. But  while  much  that  has  been  thus 
[190] 


THE  WILL 

written  is  true,  and  while  work  expended  in 
this  direction  is  both  pleasant  and  profit- 
able, nevertheless  the  imagination  is  not 
the  supreme  power  of  the  soul,  and  a  man 
may  be  able  to  soar  on  the  wings  of  fancy 
into  the  highest  heavens,  and  still  live  a  life 
that  is  mean  and  contemptible,  and  end  his 
career  in  heartbreak  and  gloom. 

And  so  there  are  those  who  have  no  con- 
fidence either  in  the  memory  or  in  the 
imagination.  They  say,  cultivate  memory 
and  you  have  iparrots,  cultivate  the  im- 
agination and  you  have  dreamers,  let  us 
then  cultivate  the  reason  and  all  will  be 
well.  Let  us  teach  boys  and  girls  to  think, 
to  judge,  to  draw  conclusions.  Away  with 
your  memorizing  and  your  soaring,  and  let 
us  have  more  logic,  let  us  learn  how  to  draw 
conclusions  from  premises,  and  how  to 
make  distinctions  between  things  that  are 
not  at  all  the  same.  Boys  and  girls  if  taught 
[191] 


THE  WILL 

to  think  will  most  certainly  become  kings 
and  queens  in  the  world! 

Now  it  goes  without  saying  that  boys  and 
girls  ought  to  exercise  their  memory,  their 
imagination  and  their  reason,  but  it  should 
never  be  forgotten  that  there  is  one  faculty 
which  is  higher  than  all  these,  and  that  is 
the  will.  These  other  faculties  are  only 
pages  or  attendants,  or,  if  you  please,  cour- 
tiers, arrayed  in  spangled  garments;  but  if 
you  will  look  over  their  heads  toward  the 
power  seated  on  the  throne,  you  will  see 
that  the  king  is  the  will.  Around  him  are 
gathered  the  dispositions  and  inclinations, 
the  appetites  and  passions  and  emotions,  the 
opinions  and  notions  and  desires  and  ambi- 
tions and  yearnings  and  longings  and  aspi- 
rations and  hopes  and  fears  and  loves  and 
hates.  All  these  bow  down  before  the  will. 
It  is  the  will  which  judges,  decides,  prefers, 
chooses.  It  is  the  will  which  issues  decrees 
[192] 


THE  WILL 

and  lays  down  laws  and  moulds  life  accord- 
ing to  his  own  good  pleasure.  At  the  very 
center  of  the  soul  sits  the  will.  He  listens 
to  what  the  emotions  say,  and  the  appetites 
clamor  for,  and  the  passions  desire,  and 
having  weighed  the  arguments  and  sifted 
the  reasons  he  gives  his  decision.  He  is  the 
arbiter  and  maker  of  life. 

The  happiness  of  life  depends  on  the 
will.  Everyone  wants  happiness,  but  not 
everybody  knows  how  happiness  can  be 
found.  There  is  an  impression  that  it  de- 
pends on  the  possession  of  things.  If  this 
be  true  how  does  it  happen  that  thousands 
of  the  most  miserable  people  on  earth  have 
everything  that  money  can  buy?  One  can 
be  weighed  down  with  good  things  and  still 
sigh  "Vanity  of  vanities,  all  is  vanity!" 
Nor  does  happiness  depend  on  the  things 
which  you  know.  It  was  once  supposed 
that  knowledge  is  the  source  of  joy,  and  that 
[193] 


THE  WILL 

if  men  were  only  educated  and  had  their 
minds  stored  with  the  treasures  of  learning, 
then  the  shadows  would  vanish  and  music 
would  fill  all  the  days.  But  experience 
proves  that  knowledge  has  little  to  do  with 
the  joy  of  the  heart,  and  that  some  of  the 
most  wretched  of  men  are  those  who  have 
mastered  many  a  kingdom  of  learning.  The 
secret  of  happiness  does  not  lie  in  the  things 
we  have  or  in  the  things  we  know. 

The  secret  of  success  lies  in  the  will. 
There  are  two  great  surprises  in  the  world 
— some  men  come  out  so  much  better  than 
we  expected,  others  come  out  so  much 
worse.  The  reason  why  we  are  surprised 
and  disappointed  is  because  we  assume  that 
the  secret  of  success  lies  in  other  things  and 
not  in  the  will.  If  a  boy  has  a  good  memory 
and  gets  high  grades  at  school,  we  expect 
great  things  of  him.  How  absurd!  If  a 
young  man  is  brilliant,  if  he  has  an  imagi- 
[194] 


THE  WILL 

nation  which  flashes  and  an  intellect  which 
fascinates,  we  dream  high  things  for  him. 
This  is  foolish!  In  the  school  the  boy  of 
memory  may  shine,  and  in  the  parlor  the 
young  man  of  imagination  may  sparkle,  but 
on  that  dusty  and  difficult  road  which  runs 
out  across  the  years,  it  is  not  the  man  of 
imagination  or  memory,  but  the  man  of 
tenacious  and  unconquerable  will  who  wins 
the  victories  and  secures  the  crown. 

What  is  success  but  the  overcoming  of 
obstacles,  and  how  are  obstacles  to  be  over- 
come? Not  by  memory  and  not  by  imagi- 
nation and  not  by  reason,  but  by  the  forth- 
putting  of  the  power  of  the  will.  There  is 
a  world  of  wisdom  concentrated  in  the  old 
proverb:  "Where  there's  a  will  there's  a 
way." 

Character  and  destiny  depend  on  the 
will.  We  do  not  differ  so  much  from  one 
another  as  we  sometimes  imagine,  either  in 
[i95] 


THE  WILL 

feelings  or  ideas,  in  ambitions  or  ideals. 
The  chief  difference  in  men  is  a  difference 
in  the  will.  Men  of  the  same  family  living 
under  the  same  conditions  will  come  out  at 
entirely  different  points,  because  of  a  dif- 
ference in  the  use  of  the  will.  Character 
is  not  something  that  drifts  in  on  us  like  sea- 
weed. It  is  a  continent  which  is  built  up  by 
numberless  acts  of  the  will.  Cicero  was 
right  when  he  said:  "To  live  is  not  to 
think,  to  live  is  to  will."  How  can  you  ac- 
count for  the  fact  that  so  many  of  the  human 
wrecks  which  find  their  way  to  the  mission 
stations  and  places  of  refuge  in  our  large 
cities  are  from  good  homes  and  great  uni- 
versities, men  who  have  had  all  the  luxuries 
and  all  the  advantages,  and  yet  have  made 
shipwreck  at  last?  There  is  only  one  expla- 
nation, and  that  is  that  the  secret  of  happi- 
ness, of  success,  of  character,  and  of  destiny 
lies  in  the  will. 

[196] 


THE  WILL 

If  this  be  true  then  certainly  we  ought  to 
cultivate  our  will.  No  other  part  of  our 
human  nature  can  be  so  strengthened  by 
exercise,  and  no  other  faculty  if  neglected 
can  bring  such  misery  on  a  man,  as  the  will. 
Everybody  nowadays  believes  in  the  exer- 
cise of  the  body.  It  is  strange  that  every- 
body does  not  believe  in  the  culture  of  the 
the  will.  Let  me  give  you  three  suggestions 
on  this  point. 

Train  your  will  to  act  promptly  in  decid- 
ing all  questions  of  conduct,  when  you  see 
clearly  which  act  is  right  and  which  act  is 
wrong.  When  you  see  that  one  course  is 
right  and  the  other  course  is  wrong,  your  de- 
cision ought  to  be  as  quick  as  a  flash  of 
lightning.  You  cannot  afford  to  parley,  or 
dally,  or  procrastinate  a  single  moment.  If 
you  say  I  know  this  course  is  right  and  I  am 
sure  the  other  course  is  wrong,  but  I  shall 
not  decide  till  to-morrow  which  course  I 
[i97] 


THE  WILL 

shall  pursue,  you  are  putting  a  knife  into 
one  of  the  arteries  of  your  soul,  and  you  will 
so  weaken  yourself  that  by  and  by  you  can- 
not tell  which  course  is  right  and  which 
course  is  wrong.  The  boy  or  girl  who  hesi- 
tates in  deciding  that  he  will  follow  the  path 
of  life,  has  already  entered  on  the  way  that 
leads  to  death. 

Train  your  will  to  hold  on.  When  you 
have  made  a  plan,  carry  it  out.  When  you 
have  decided  to  do  a  thing,  do  it.  Do  not 
let  anything  inconvenient  or  disagreeable 
daunt  you  or  drive  you  back.  Wordsworth 
having  decided  to  take  a  mountain  walk 
would  not  turn  back  when  it  threatened  to 
rain,  because  he  would  not  surrender  to  so 
small  a  thing  as  a  shower.  A  rain  was  dis- 
agreeable to  the  skin,  but  the  act  of  giving 

i 

up  a  fixed  purpose  in  view  of  a  slight  pos- 
sible   inconvenience    was    dangerous,    he 
thought,  to  character.    Better  have  a  wet 
[198] 


THE  WILL 

skin  and  a  triumphant  heart,  than  a  dry  skin 
and  a  defeated  soul.  That  was  the  opinion 
of  Wordsworth  and  there  is  wisdom  in  it. 
Many  men  make  plans,  but  they  never  carry 
them  out.  A  thunder  shower  comes  up  and 
they  run  home.  Many  a  woman  never  car- 
ries out  her  resolutions,  all  because  of  a 
shower. 

Train  your  will  to  face  the  seemingly 
impossible  without  flinching.  When  things 
are  dark,  don't  run  away.  When  things  are 
dreadful,  don't  collapse.  When  things  are 
unbearable,  don't  slump  down  into  a  pulpy 
mass  of  fear.  Imitate  the  example  of  the 
great  Mirabeau,  who,  when  some  one 
said  "Impossible!"  replied  "Impossible? 
Never  mention  to  me  again  that  blockhead's 
word!"  When  Napoleon's  advisers  told 
him  that  the  Alps  were  in  the  way  and  that 
they  did  not  see  how  his  armies  and  supplies 
could  get  over  them,  his  reply  was  "  There 


THE   WILL 

shall  be  no  Alps,"  and  the  great  mountain 
masses  vanished  as  if  by  magic.  He  was  the 
greatest  general  in  the  history  of  the  world, 
because  he  was  the  incarnation  of  an  uncon- 
querable will.  If  you  sometimes  get  dis- 
couraged and  feel  that  circumstances  are 
too  mighty  for  you,  repeat  the  lines  of  the 
English  poet: 

"  It  matters  not  how  strait  the  gate, 
How  charged  with  punishments  the  scroll: 
I  am  the  master  of  my  fate; 
I  am  the  captain  of  my  soul." 

If  at  any  time  you  shrink  from  taking 
hold  of  a  duty  that  is  difficult,  repeat  to 
yourself  the  well  known  lines: 

"  Tender-handed  stroke  a  nettle, 
And  it  stings  you  for  your  pains. 
Grasp  it  like  a  man  of  mettle, 
And  it  soft  as  silk  remains." 

Beware  of  the  diseases  of  the  will,  only 
[200] 


THE   WILL 

two  of  which  I  have  time  to  bring  to  your 
attention.  Beware  of  the  paralysis  of  the 
will.  By  paralysis  is  meant  the  loss  of 
power  of  motion.  The  will  may  become 
so  sick  that  it  cannot  act.  There  are  peo- 
ple who  are  always  undecided.  They  do 
not  know  what  to  think  or  say  or  do.  They 
waver,  hesitate,  fluctuate.  They  are  like 
chameleons,  taking  their  color  from  the 
place  in  which  they  happen  to  be.  They 
are  like  seaweed  drifting  with  the  current. 
They  are  like  a  weather-cock,  changing 
with  every  movement  of  the  wind.  What 
an  awful  fate  to  have  no  more  mind  or 
character  than  a  tin  rooster!  This  paralysis 
of  the  will  has  many  causes,  one  of  which  is 
alcohol.  The  terrible  thing  about  alcohol 
is  that  in  the  case  of  many  men  it  eats  out 
the  fiber  of  the  will.  The  man  discovers 
he  is  going  to  destruction,  but  he  makes  the 
discovery  too  late.  There  is  a  line  of  dead 

[201] 


THE  WILL 

men  extending  from  New  York  City  to 
ancient  Babylon,  all  of  them  slain  by  alco- 
hol. With  all  the  ravages  of  this  awful 
curse  spread  before  us,  well  might  one  cry 
out  with  Shakespeare : 

"  O  God,  that  men  should  put  an  enemy 
Into  their  mouths  to  steal  away  their  brains ! " 

Some  boy  here  may  say, — "  I  am  in  no 
danger.  Alcohol  would  never  hurt  me. 
Only  weak  and  foolish  people  ever  become 
drunkards."  Do  not  be  so  sure.  Robert 
Burns  had  one  of  the  finest  minds  God  ever 
gave  a  man,  but  he  died  a  wreck  at  thirty- 
seven.  Charles  Lamb  was  one  of  the  sweet- 
est spirits  God  ever  gave  to  England,  but 
Charles  Lamb  punctuates  his  writings  with 
sobs  because  alcohol  has  eaten  out  the  core 
of  his  will.  Opium  is  also  a  cause  of  will- 
paralysis.  Thomas  de  Quincey  was  a  re- 
markable man,  but  opium  became  his  mas- 
[202] 


THE  WILL 

ter,  and  if  you  want  to  know  how  opium  de- 
stroys the  nerves  of  the  will  read  his  "  Con- 
fessions of  an  Opium  Eater."  Samuel  Tay- 
lor Coleridge  was  one  of  the  greatest  of 
geniuses,  but  opium  attacked  him  and  over- 
threw him,  and  while  he  began  many 
mighty  enterprises  he  never  completed  any 
of  them,  all  because  opium  had  destroyed 
the  iron  in  the  will. 

There  are  other  bad  habits  which  will 
bring  on  this  will-paralysis.  Indulgence 
of  any  kind  will  do  it.  Laziness  will  do  it. 
Physical  indolence  paves  the  way  for  it.  If 
you  have  flabby  muscles  you  will  most  likely 
have  a  flabby  will.  Moral  laziness  is  cer- 
tain to  bring  it  on.  If  you  allow  trains  of 
thought  to  run  where  they  will,  and  streams 
of  feeling  to  flow  where  they  please,  and 
flocks  of  fancies  to  fly  where  they  wish, 
while  you  sit  lazily  by  looking  on,  your 
will  slowly  but  surely  withers  and  fades 
[203] 


THE   WILL 

away,  and  by  and  by  you  will  have  no  con- 
trol whatsoever  over  the  kingdom  of  your 
soul.  It  is  your  business  to  direct  the  trains 
of  thought,  and  to  control  the  currents  of 
feeling,  and  to  rule  all  the  flocks  of  fancies, 
and  if  you  do  not  exercise  the  power  of 
choosing,  ruling,  deciding,  you  will  end  at 
last  a  pitiable  and  disconsolate  slave. 

A  man  with  paralysis  of  the  will  is  like 
an  ocean  steamer  with  its  steering  apparatus 
gone.  The  steamer  goes  down  the  harbor 
and  everybody  is  happy.  The  decks  are 
spacious,  the  engines  are  superb,  the  cabins 
are  luxurious,  the  larder  is  filled  with  all 
the  good  things  which  the  palate  knows, 
but,  alas,  there  is  no  one  who  can  turn  the 
great  vessel  to  the  right  or  left,  or  who  can 
compel  her  to  travel  a  straightforward 
course,  and  so  the  winds  play  with  her,  and 
the  currents  toy  with  her,  and  the  storms 
make  sport  of  her,  and  they  drive  her  far- 
[204] 


THE   WILL 

ther  and  farther  out  of  her  course,  until  at 
last  in  disgust  at  her  they  dash  her  against 
a  rock  and  pound  her  into  splinters,  and 
the  angry  sea  bellows  as  it  closes  over  her: 
"  She  is  gone! "  That  is  a  picture  of  a  soul 
starting  out  in  life  with  a  will  which  is  par- 
alyzed. 

But  there  is  another  disease  no  less  la- 
mentable and  fatal — we  may  call  it  the 
bloating  of  the  will.  The  will  may  become 
enlarged,  unwieldy,  puffed  up,  and  un- 
sightly. One  may  so  cultivate  the  will  as 
to  make  it  sick.  It  may  become  overdevel- 
oped, misshapen,  perverted.  A  man  may 
so  pride  himself  upon  his  will  as  to  become 
wilful — full  of  will,  so  full  of  will  that 
everything  else  is  crowded  out.  Such  a 
man  becomes  headstrong,  or  heady.  He  is 
all  head  and  no  heart.  Boys  and  girls  get 
heady  and  say  "  I  will  "  and  "  I  won't,"  and 
when  in  this  mood  they  are  unwilling  to 
[205] 


THE  WILL 

listen  to  fact  or  reason.  The  will  has  taken 
complete  possession  of  the  mind  and  like 
a  blind  and  bloated  tyrant  it  lords  it  over 
the  entire  life  of  the  soul.  This  disease 
goes  with  some  men  and  women  all  the  way 
through  life.  They  are  always  heady, 
headstrong  and  wilful.  You  can  never 
teach  them  anything.  They  will  have  their 
own  way  every  time.  They  get  an  idea 
and  will  never  change  it.  They  adopt  a 
plan  and  will  never  modify  it.  No  mat- 
ter how  silly  their  idea,  or  unwise  their 
policy  they  will  cling  to  it  to  the  bitter  end. 
Persuasion  can  do  nothing,  reason  can  do 
nothing,  wisdom  can  do  nothing,  they  are 
obstinate,  or  as  we  sometimes  say,  stubborn 
as  a  mule.  In  paralysis  of  the  will  one 
sinks  to  the  level  of  a  tin  rooster,  in  the 
bloating  of  the  will  one  sinks  to  the  level  of 
a  beast  which  has  much  muscle  and  little 
sense. 

[206] 


THE  WILL 

Persons  thus  afflicted  often  pride  them- 
selves on  their  strong  will.  The  fact  is  that 
wilfulness  is  a  disease,  a  form  of  weakness. 
The  will  is  never  strong  unless  it  can  bend 
the  knee.  If  a  man  tells  us  he  cannot  get 
down  on  his  knees,  we  know  there  is  some- 
thing the  matter  with  him.  He  is  a  cripple, 
an  invalid,  for  all  men  in  normal  health 
can  drop  easily  to  their  knees.  So  it  is  with 
the  will.  If  it  is  so  stiff  it  cannot  kneel,  it 
is  a  sick  and  bloated  will,  and  its  crazy  de- 
cisions will  lead  to  misery  and  disaster  at  the 
last. 

Would  you  see  the  perfect  will,  then  look 
at  Jesus.  His  will  was  so  tenacious  that 
no  power  could  ever  drive  him  from  his 
purpose,  and  yet  his  will  from  first  to  last 
was  surrendered.  This  fact  comes  out  in 
the  story  of  the  baptism.  He  insisted  on 
being  baptized,  not  because  he  needed  bap- 
tism, but  because  his  baptism  was  necessary 
[207] 


THE   WILL 

to  carry  out  the  plans  of  God.  He  had  no 
sin,  but  he  was  a  brother  of  all  sinful  men 
and  he  wanted  to  take  his  place  among 
them,  and  strengthen  them  by  standing  with 
them.  That  was  his  attitude  always.  He 
did  not  want  his  own  way,  but  only  the  way 
of  God.  "  My  meat  is  to  do  the  will  of  him 
that  sent  me."  "  I  do  always  those  things 
which  are  pleasing  unto  him."  In  the  last 
great  crisis  of  his  life  he  cried:  "Not  my 
will,  not  my  will,  but  thine  be  done!" 

The  secret  of  the  tenacity  of  his  will  lay 
in  the  completeness  of  his  surrender  to  the 
law  of  love.  He  loved  God  so  completely 
that  the  world  could  not  move  him,  and  he 
loved  man  so  truly  that  man's  whims  and 
follies,  unreasonableness  and  injustice,  hate- 
fulness  and  cruelty  could  not  chill  the  fer- 
vor of  his  affection  or  change  by  one  iota 
the  scope  and  nature  of  his  work.  From 
the  first  he  was  determined  to  do  the  will 
[208] 


THE   WILL 

of  God,  and  when  men  and  devils  rose 
against  him,  saying,  you  shall  not  do  the 
will  of  God,  his  calm  reply  to  all  was,  "  I 
will." 

When  Thomas  Carlyle  was  seventy  years 
old  he  was  invited  to  come  back  to  his  Alma 
Mater,  the  University  of  Edinburgh,  and 
deliver  an  address.  He  accepted  the  invi- 
tation, and  poured  out  into  the  students' 
ears  a  wealth  of  wisdom  gained  in  the  fifty- 
six  years  which  had  come  and  gone  since 
he  entered  that  institution  as  a  Freshman. 
He  told  them  many  profound  and  wise 
things,  which  I  hope  you  will  all  some  day 
read,  closing  his  address  with  a  few  stanzas 
from  a  German  poem  which  had,  he  said, 
the  sweet  clear  tone  of  a  modern  psalm : 

"  Solemn  before  us, 
Veiled,  the  dark  portal, 
Goal  of  all  mortal. 
Stars  silent  rest  o'er  us — 
[209] 


THE  WILL 

Graves  under  us,  silent 
But  heard  are  the  voices, 
Heard  are  the  sages, 
The  worlds  and  the  ages: 
*  Choose  well :  your  choice  is 
Brief,  and  yet  endless.' " 


[210]' 


IX 
HONESTY 

"  Thou   shalt   not   Steal."     Ex.   201,  15. 

Preached  Sunday  Morning 
May  10,  1908 


HONESTY 

MY  subject  is  "  Honesty,"  and  my 
text  is  the  eighth  commandment: 
"Thou  shalt  not  steal."  A  fa- 
mous Englishman  said  a  few  years  ago  that 
he  had  never  heard  a  sermon  on  Honesty. 
I  do  not  know  whether  he  did  not  go  often 
to  church,  or  whether  the  churches  in  his 
part  of  England  were  not  making  a  specialty 
just  then  of  the  Christian  virtues,  but  I  do 
not  want  any  boy  or  girl  who  reads  this  to 
grow  up  and  be  able  to  say  in  later  life  what 
the  disappointed  Englishman  said. 

Honesty  is  one  of  the  oldest  of  the  vir- 
tues.    In  one  sense  all  virtues  are  of  the 
same  age.     They  are  all  old  as  God.     But 
they  came  into  this  world  at  different  times, 
[213] 


HONESTY 

and  even  after  they  are  here  it  is  often  a 
long  while  before  men  see  that  they  are 
really  virtues.  They  come  into  our  world 
with  veils  on  their  faces,  and  that  is  why 
they  are  not  recognized  at  first.  Mercy 
is  not  so  old  a  virtue  as  honesty.  There 
was  a  long  time  before  men  came  to  see  how 
beautiful  and  heavenly  it  is.  Humility  is 
the  youngest  of  all  the  virtues.  It  is  not 
older  than  the  Christian  religion.  Before 
Jesus  came,  humility  was  thought  to  be  a 
weakness  or  vice.  But  the  prophet  of  Gali- 
lee saw  the  beauty  of  it,  placed  a  crown  on 
its  head,  and  ever  since  he  crowned  it,  the 
world  has  counted  it  one  of  the  greatest  of 
all  the  virtues. 

But  honesty  is  a  very  old  virtue.  It  was 
born  in  the  morning  of  the  world.  It  is  a 
gray-headed,  wrinkled,  old  virtue  which 
has  come  down  the  highway  of  many  cen- 
turies, and  its  feet  are  all  covered  with  dust, 
[214] 


HONESTY 

and  its  coat  is  seedy  and  threadbare,  and 
possibly  that  is  one  of  the  reasons  why  so 
many  people  will  have  nothing  to  do 
with  it. 

It  is  a  plain  virtue.  Some  virtues  are 
showy  and  even  gaudy.  They  wear  robes 
of  crimson  velvet  trimmed  with  gold  lace 
and  are  full  of  glitter  and  sparkle.  Hero- 
ism is  one  of  these  pompous  virtues.  Every- 
body looks  at  it  and  praises  it.  But  honesty 
is  a  very  quiet,  sober  virtue.  It  always 
dresses  in  linsey  woolsey  and  never  makes 
a  show.  It  is  a  Quaker  in  the  family  of  vir- 
tues, and  perhaps  it  is  because  of  its  plain 
drab  coat  that  so  many  people  do  not  take 
much  interest  in  it. 

Thus  far  I  have  spoken  of  Honesty  as 
though  it  were  a  man,  but  now  I  want  to 
talk  about  it  as  though  it  were  a  kind  of 
fruit,  and  that  is  really  what  it  is,  a  sort  of 
fruit  created  by  the  Spirit  of  God  in  the 
[215] 


HONESTY 

human  heart.  If  we  look  at  it  as  a  sort  of 
fruit  then  we  can  say  that  it  grows  on  one 
of  the  lowest  branches  of  the  tree  of  life. 
Little  folks  standing  on  the  ground  can 
easily  reach  it.  There  are  many  kinds  of 
fruits  which  grow  high  up  among  the  top- 
most branches,  and  boys  and  girls  cannot 
get  at  them.  There  is  nothing  to  do  but  to 
wait  and  grow. 

Honesty  is  so  low  down  that  even  a  five- 
year-old  can  reach  out  and  touch  it  with 
his  hand.  There  are  many  fine  things  in 
this  world  which  only  a  favored  few  can 
ever  hope  to  gain.  They  are  high  abo've 
the  ground  and  the  average  person  cannot 
reach  them.  He  has  no  ladder  and  if  he 
had,  he  lacks  the  strength  to  lift  the  ladder 
to  its  place.  He  cannot  climb,  for  he  does 
not  have  the  kind  of  strength  by  means  of 
which  men  climb  to  lofty  heights.  For  in- 
stance, the  ability  to  paint  or  sing,  to  write 
[216] 


HONESTY 

a  great  poem  or  contrive  a  great  invention, 
to  lead  an  army  or  rule  a  state,  to  do  any 
one  of  these  things  is  a  high  accomplish- 
ment and  only  a  few  mortals,  no  matter  how 
hard  they  try,  can  ever  reach  the  top  of  the 
tree  where  this  glittering  golden  fruit  is 
growing. 

Honesty  is  within  the  reach  of  everybody. 
You  may  have  a  poor  memory  and  a  poor 
imagination  and  a  poor  education  and  a 
poor  chance  to  get  many  a  thing  which  the 
world  counts  of  value,  but  every  one  of  you 
can  reach  out  your  hand  and  take  possession 
of  this  beautiful  fruit  of  Paradise.  When 
we  make  a  list  of  the  things  which  we  can- 
not do,  the  list  is  long.  When  we  write  a 
list  of  things  which  it  is  possible  for  us  to 
do,  the  list  is  short.  But  no  matter  how 
short  the  list,  there  is  always  one  thing 
which  every  human  being  is  able  to  say, 
and  that  is  "  I  can  be  honest."  Never  for- 
[217] 


HONESTY 

get,  then,  that  honesty  grows  on  one  of  the 
lowest  of  the  branches. 

And  yet  while  honesty  is  within  the  reach 
of  everybody  it  is  not  easy  to  be  honest. 
That  this  is  the  case  is  proved  by  the  large 
number  of  persons  who  are  dishonest.  Peo- 
ple as  a  rule  like  to  do  the  thing  which  is 
easy,  and  if  it  were  easy  to  be  honest  we 
should  have  many  more  honest  men  than  we 
have.  In  Asia  and  Africa  and  Europe  and 
Australia  there  are  hundreds  of  thousands 
of  people — so  travelers  say — who  are  dis- 
honest. 

In  this  respect  the  New  World  is  like 
the  old.  America  also  has  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  dishonest  men  and  women, 
and  this  is  surprising  when  we  remember 
how  many  schools  and  churches  there  are, 
all  of  them  teaching  boys  and  girls,  and 
men  and  women  to  be  honest.  It  must  be 
hard  indeed  to  be  an  honest  man,  else  other- 
[218] 


HONESTY 

wise  there  would  not  be  so  many  rogues. 
And  what  is  true  to-day  has  been  true  ever 
since  the  world  began.  From  the  very  be- 
ginning men  have  spoken  dishonest  words 
and  done  dishonest  things,  and  all  because 
they  have  had  dishonest  hearts. 

It  seems  to  be  as  hard  now  to  be  an  hon- 
est man  as  it  was  thousands  of  years  ago. 
The  fruit  grows  down  low  to  the  ground 
and  yet  it  is  difficult  to  get  it.  How  hard 
it  is  may  be  seen  by  a  study  of  our  language. 
I  intended  to  make  you  a  list  of  the  words 
which  express  the  many  shades  and  grades 
and  forms  of  dishonesty,  but  when  I  began 
to  write  them  down  I  found  I  could  not 
get  them  into  my  sermon  and  leave  room  for 
the  things  I  wanted  to  say.  I  started  with 
"  thief,"  "  burglar,"  "  robber,"  "  pick- 
pocket," and  "  shoplifter,"  and  I  then  went 
on  to  "  forger,"  "  defaulter,"  "  embezzler," 
"swindler"  and  "cheat,"  and  then  such 
[219] 


HONESTY 

crowds  of  other  dark  words  came  trooping 
around  me,  that  I  decided  to  let  each  one  of 
you  make  out  the  list  for  himself. 

How  does  it  happen  that  we  have  so  many 
bad  and  ugly  names?  It  is  because  we  are 
members  of  a  dishonest  race.  Names  are 
simply  tags  which  we  pin  to  people  so  that 
we  can  tell  them  from  one  another,  and  the 
reason  we  have  so  many  rogue  tags  is  be- 
cause we  have  so  many  different  kinds  of 
people  who  have  broken  the  eighth  com- 
mandment. 

Of  course  it  is  easy  to  keep  away  from 
certain  forms  of  dishonesty,  for  there  are 
kinds  of  stealing  which  are  very  vulgar  and 
coarse.  I  do  not  suppose  you  will  find  it 
hard  to  keep  from  breaking  into  a  house, 
or  blowing  open  a  safe,  or  picking  some- 
body's pocket,  or  forging  a  note.  Those 
are  very  shabby  kinds  of  stealing  which 
well-bred  people  never  think  of  indulging 
[220] 


HONESTY 

in;  but  there  are  fine  and  polite  forms  of 
theft  which  elegant  gentlemen  commit  with- 
out blushing,  and  they  steal  so  skillfully 
and  so  successfully  that  it  hardly  seems  like 
stealing  at  all.  There  are  men  who  would 
not  for  the  world  steal  a  gold  watch,  but 
they  would  steal  a  gold  mine;  they  would 
never  stoop  to  take  a  man's  silver  spoons, 
but  they  would  take  his  whole  house  with 
everything  in  it;  they  would  never  steal 
railroad  spikes,  but  they  would  not  hesitate 
to  steal  the  whole  railroad.  The  most 
dangerous  thieves  in  America  to-day  are  as 
well  dressed  and  as  polite  and  as  good  look- 
ing and  as  gracious  as  any  person  in  this 
congregation.  It  is  not  hard  to  keep  away 
from  certain  forms  of  dishonesty,  but  to 
keep  away  from  dishonesty  of  every  sort, 
that  is  hard  indeed. 

It  is  easy  to  keep  out  of  the  Penitentiary. 
Most  men  do.     Almost  any  man  can  if  he 

[221] 


HONESTY 

is  careful.  The  Government  does  not  pay 
attention  to  more  than  a  few  kinds  of  lies 
and  a  few  sorts  of  thefts — just  a  handful 
out  of  thousands.  You  might  lie  all  day 
long  and  no  policeman  would  ever  arrest 
you,  and  you  might  be  dishonest  in  scores 
of  ways  and  still  never  go  to  jail.  The 
courts  have  more  than  they  can  do  now, 
without  adding  to  their  burden  by  paying 
attention  to  still  other  forms  of  dishonesty. 
I  do  not  say  that  it  is  hard  to  keep  out  of  the 
hands  of  the  policeman.  All  I  say  is  that 
it  is  hard  to  be  honest.  Honesty  has  to  do, 
not  simply  with  dollars,  but  with  everything 
which  people  possess.  One  may  steal 
money,  and  he  may  also  steal  time  and  en- 
ergy and  reputation  and  the  rights  and  hap- 
piness of  others.  A  man  may  be  dishonest 
with  his  hands  and  also  with  his  mind  and 
his  heart.  We  are  bound  to  be  honest,  not 
simply  in  our  deeds,  but  also  in  our  words 
1 222] 


HONESTY 

and  thoughts  and  feelings  and  motives. 
Honesty  is  something  which  goes  down  into 
the  very  center  of  the  heart,  into  the  very 
core  of  one's  being.  To  be  honest  clear 
through — that  is  difficult  indeed. 

Let  me  urge  you  then  to  begin  to-day  to 
cultivate  honesty  with  fresh  vim  and  de- 
termination. Make  it  your  business  to  be 
honest,  and  stick  to  this  business  as  long  as 
you  live.  It  is  a  matter  which  you  must 
work  out  each  one  for  himself.  Honesty 
is  a  treasure  which  cannot  be  inherited. 
Your  parents  can  give  you  money  and 
houses,  but  they  cannot  give  you  an  honest 
heart.  Your  father  may  be  as  honest  a  man 
as  ever  lived,  but  he  cannot  bequeath  his 
honesty  to  you.  Many  an  honest  father  has 
had  a  dishonest  son.  Nobody  can  give  you 
this  virtue.  Not  one  of  your  teachers  or 
pastors  or  friends,  no  matter  how  dearly 
he  loves  you,  can  make  you  a  present  of  this 
[223] 


HONESTY 

beautiful  thing.  You  cannot  buy  it.  It 
is  not  for  sale.  The  stores  have  thousands 
of  things  to  be  gotten  for  money,  but  hon- 
esty is  never  on  sale.  Even  God  cannot 
give  it  to  you,  unless  you  want  it  and  work 
for  it.  If  he  could  give  it  to  you,  he  could 
give  it  to  everybody,  and  if  he  could  give 
it  to  everybody,  of  course  he  would.  He 
cannot  give  it  to  you  or  to  anybody  else. 
Every  one  must  love  honesty  and  win  it  for 
himself.  Begin  to-day,  then,  if  you  have 
never  begun  before,  upon  the  great  work  of 
building  up  an  honest  heart. 

The  reasons  why  I  ask  this  are  three. 
In  the  first  place  it  is  a  shameful  thing  to 
be  dishonest.  If  you  are  dishonest  you  have 
nobody  but  yourself  to  blame.  When  a 
person  has  a  hare-lip,  or  a  club-foot,  or  a 
hunch-back,  or  any  deformity  of  limb,  our 
heart  goes  out  to  that  person  in  sympathy 
and  pity.  The  person  is  not  to  blame  for 
[224] 


HONESTY 

his  defect.  He  inherited  it,  was  born  with 
it,  or  it  is  the  result  of  accident  or  disease. 
But  dishonesty  is  a  deformity  of  the  human 
spirit  for  which  the  person  who  has  it  is 
himself  responsible.  He  himself  has  taken 
his  soul  and  deliberately  twisted  it  out  of 
shape.  He  has  made  himself  a  dwarf,  a 
miserable  crooked  pigmy.  He  cannot  walk 
as  a  man  ought  to  walk,  nor  stand  up  as  a 
man  ought  to  stand.  Whenever  he  finds 
himself  in  the  company  of  honest  men  he 
feels  his  degradation,  he  knows  he  is  a  crip- 
ple, and  not  a  full-statured  man.  This  is 
the  first  reason  why  you  should  never  per- 
mit yourself  to  be  dishonest,  because  dis- 
honesty is  disgraceful,  scandalous,  low, 
mean,  vile,  dirty! 

In  the  second  place  it  is  wicked.  When 
a  thing  is  contrary  to  the  will  and  wish  of 
God  we  call  it  wicked.  God  is  an  honest 
God,  and  we  as  his  children  are  intended  to 

[2251 


HONESTY 

be  like  him.  If  we  are  dishonest  we  are 
unlike  him,  and  cannot  live  in  harmony 
with  him,  either  in  this  world  or  in  any 
other.  By  our  dishonesty,  moreover,  we 
harm  others.  We  throw  this  world  into 
confusion.  Our  brothers  and  sisters  in  the 
human  family  have  a  right  to  the  truth  from 
our  lips,  and  if  we  tell  them  falsehoods  we 
rob  them  of  their  rights  and  by  so  doing 
wound  the  heart  of  God.  We  cannot  do 
wrong  to  any  of  his  children  without  offend- 
ing him.  Flee  dishonesty,  then,  because  it 
is  wicked,  a  sin  against  your  brothers,  and 
sisters,  and  also  against  your  best  friend, 
your  Heavenly  Father. 

In  the  third  place,  it  is  dangerous  to  be 
dishonest.  Dishonest  people  are  punished 
fearfully.  There  is  no  escape.  It  is  not 
hard  to  escape  from  the  policeman  or  the 
jailor.  The  fingers  of  civil  law  are  clumsy 
and  many  scoundrels  get  away.  But  there 
[226] 


HONESTY 

is  a  Judge  from  whom  nobody  gets  away, 
and  that  is  God.  He  has  appointed  certain 
punishments  for  dishonesty  and  from  these 
there  is  no  escape.  Not  one  man  in  the 
long  history  of  the  race  has  ever  done  a  dis- 
honest deed  and  has  escaped  paying  the 
penalty  of  his  sin.  You  never  can  get  away 
from  yourself,  can  you?  If  you  are  a 
rogue,  you  must  always  live  with  a  rogue, 
eat  with  him,  walk  with  him,  work  with 
him,  go  to  bed  with  him.  Every  man  here 
who  has  ever  stolen  a  dollar  is  thinking  of 
his  theft  now.  He  will  think  of  it  on  his 
death-bed.  He  will  think  of  it  in  the  next 
world. 

If  you  cut  your  hand  with  a  knife,  the 
wound  will  heal.  The  scar  may  remain,  but 
the  scar  will  not  hurt  you.  Do  a  dishonest 
deed  and  you  cut  a  gash  in  your  soul  which 
leaves  a  scar  and  whenever  you  press  the 
scar  with  your  memory  the  scar  hurts. 
[227] 


HONESTY 

Every  Government  has  what  it  calls  a  Con- 
science Fund,  made  up  of  money  which  has 
been  returned  by  those  who  have  in  various 
ways  defrauded  the  Government.  Some- 
times the  money  is  not  returned  for  ten  or 
twenty  or  even  thirty  or  forty  years.  Why 
is  it  returned  at  all?  Because  the  thief  is 
suffering.  He  cannot  stand  his  punishment 
any  longer.  God  has  been  whipping  him 
through  his  conscience  during  all  of  the 
years,  and  at  last  he  says,  "  This  is  more  than 
I  can  bear.  I  will  send  the  stolen  money 
back."  Suppose  he  does  not  send  it  back, 
and  goes  into  the  other  world  from  which 
it  is  impossible  to  send  money  back,  then 
what?  In  a  universe  governed  by  an  hon- 
est God  it  is  a  frightfully  dangerous  thing 
to  be  dishonest. 

Because,  then,  dishonesty  is  shameful  and 
wicked  and  dangerous,  you  ought  always 
to  fear,  hate  and  abhor  it.     To  abhor  is  to 
[228] 


HONESTY 

hate  hard.     It  is  not  enough  to  dislike  it  or 
hate  it  only  a  little.     You  ought  to  detest  it, 
loathe  it,  shudder  at  it,  shrink  from  it  with 
horror.     Up  in  the  Zoological  Garden  in 
the  Bronx  there  is  a  snake  house  full  of 
writhing  serpents,  and  in  one  of  the  cages 
in    that    house    there    is    a    black    snake 
called  the  Cobra,  the  most  poisonous  of  all 
known  reptiles.     I  like  to  look  at  him  be- 
cause the  glass  is  thick  and  I  know  he  can- 
not get  out.     But  if  some  day  when  you 
are  in  the  snake  house  that  Cobra  should 
by  some  chance  get  out,  how  the  boys  would 
run  and  the  girls  would  scream!     Dishon- 
esty is  a  serpent  and  it  is  out!     It  is  more 
deadly  than  a  Cobra.     It  will  get  its  fangs 
into  you  if  you  are  not  careful,  and  if  it  once 
bites  you,  the  poison  will  go  through  every 
artery  of  your  soul. 

You  will  always  find  people  who  will  tell 
you  that  dishonesty  is  not  a  serpent  and  that 
[229] 


HONESTY 

it  is  not  deadly  at  all.  There  are  many  ex- 
cuses manufactured  for  the  purpose  of  cov- 
ering up  the  ugliness  of  this  sin,  but  no  mat- 
ter how  pretty  the  excuses,  always  remem- 
ber that  every  one  of  them  is  a  lie.  The 
more  dangerous  the  sin  the  larger  the  num- 
ber of  excuses  will  the  Devil  suggest  to 
prove  that  the  sin  is  not  heinous  at  all.  Men 
have  a  thousand  ways  of  excusing  them- 
selves in  their  dishonest  practices  and  you 
boys  will  hear  them  very  soon.  You  will 
hear  men  say,  "  I  must  live."  That  is  a 
great  mistake.  It  is  not  necessary  to  live. 
The  world  would  be  far  better  off  if  a  lot 
of  people  now  living  were  dead.  It  is  not 
necessary  for  any  man  to  live  if  he  lives  a 
dishonest  life.  Better  far  die  than  to  live 
ignobly. 

"  But  I  have  got  to  succeed,"  so  men  say 
and  go  right  on  doing  dishonest  deeds  in 
order  to  win  success.     But  it  is  not  neces- 
[230] 


HONESTY 

sary  to  succeed.  What  is  success  but  a  bub- 
ble which  bursts  in  a  moment?  No  man 
really  succeeds  who  gets  what  he  wants  by 
dishonest  means.  He  is  a  dead  failure.  It 
is  not  necessary  to  succeed  as  the  world 
counts  success.  Jesus  of  Nazareth  did  not 
succeed.  His  life  was  a  fearful  failure. 
He  tried  to  save  his  country  from  destruc- 
tion, but  he  failed,  and  for  his  trouble,  got 
himself  crucified  between  two  robbers. 
God  has  planted  that  failure  at  the  very 
center  of  human  history,  in  order  to  warn 
boys  and  girls  against  setting  their  hearts 
on  success. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  succeed.  But  one 
thing  is  needful  and  that  is  to  do  the  will 
of  God.  Others  say,  "  In  order  to  be  rich 
one  cannot  afford  to  be  too  careful  about 
the  method  by  which  he  makes  his  fortune." 
But  it  is  not  necessary  to  be  rich.  Whether 
a  man  is  rich  or  not  is  one  of  the  most  in- 
[231] 


HONESTY 

significant  of  all  matters.  No  man  can  be 
rich  very  long,  and  even  while  he  has  his 
money,  the  money  is  not  the  chief  posses- 
sion of  the  man.  No  one  is  under  the  slight- 
est obligation  to  be  rich.  God  demands 
only  that  every  man  shall  be  honest. 

But  some  young  man  says,  "  Unless  I  lie 
and  cheat  I  cannot  keep  my  position." 
Then  give  it  up!  It  is  not  necessary  to 
hold  a  position,  no  matter  how  good  it  is. 
Whatever  the  salary  may  be,  it  is  not  large 
enough  to  pay  a  man  for  being  a  rogue. 
There  are  some  things  which  if  a  man  de- 
bate even  for  a  moment,  he  endangers  the 
life  of  his  soul,  and  this  is  one  of  them.  A 
man  cannot  afford  to  remain  in  any  position 
which  compels  him  to  surrender  his  hon- 
esty. Business  men  who  are  in  a  business 
which  drives  them  into  dishonest  courses 
must  give  up  their  business,  no  matter  at 
what  financial  loss.  The  question  is  not 
[232] 


HONESTY 

debatable.  Better  be  a  beggar  and  honest 
than  the  most  successful  man  in  the  town, 
with  the  mind  of  a  liar  and  the  heart  of  a 
thief. 

You  will  hear  men  say,  "Ah,  there  are 
no  honest  men.  Everybody  nowadays  is 
more  or  less  dishonest.  It  is  impossible  to 
do  business  any  more  without  a  certain 
amount  of  deception."  The  men  who  speak 
thus  are  without  exception  bad.  When  a 
man  dips  his  brush  into  pitch  and  smears 
other  men  all  over,  it  is  simply  to  make 
others  black  that  his  own  blackness  may 
not  be  conspicuous.  It  makes  a  liar  feel 
comfortable  to  think  of  all  men  everywhere 
as  living  on  his  own  low  level. 

Fear  the  man  who  blackens  the  reputa- 
tion of  his  fellow  men,  for  he  is  a  man  with 
a  blackened  heart.  Never  let  others  apol- 
ogize for  your  dishonesty  and  never  excuse 
it  yourself.  If  in  a  moment  of  weakness 
[233] 


HONESTY 

you  fall,  do  not  try  to  convince  yourself  that 
you  did  not  fall,  but  look  yourself  bravely 
in  the  face  and  say,  "Oh,  you  thief.  Oh, 
you  liar.  How  I  hate  you  1 "  A  man  who 
lies  and  steals  ought  at  least  to  have  suffi- 
cient courage  to  look  himself  squarely  in 
the  face  and  not  try  to  cover  himself  over 
with  the  soft  veil  of  deceitful  excuses. 

This  brings  us  to  think  about  the  use  of 
religion  and  the  purpose  of  the  Christian 
church.  Why  do  we  have  a  church? 
What  is  its  supreme  work?  Is  it  to  teach 
people  to  pray  and  to  read  the  Bible  and  to 
sing  hymns?  Church  attendance  and  the 
memorizing  of  Scripture  verses  and  the 
celebration  of  the  Lord's  Supper  are  all 
good,  if  they  lead  to  something.  If  they 
lead  to  nothing  they  are  foolishness  and  a 
sham.  They  are  intended  to  lead  to  a 
Christ-like  character,  and  no  character  is 
Christ-like  which  is  not  built  on  honesty. 
[234] 


HONESTY 

To  persuade  boys  and  girls,  and  men  and 
women,  to  give  themselves  whole-heartedly 
to  the  hard  work  of  being  everywhere  and 
always  honest — this  is  the  supreme  work  of 
our  church  and  of  all  churches.  If  any  boy 
here  should  some  day  become  a  thief,  we 
should  all  hang  our  heads  in  shame,  feeling 
that  all  the  work  of  Bible  School  and 
Church  had  been  expended  on  him  in  vain. 
It  would  give  us  no  comfort  to  remember 
that  he  had  been  punctual  in  attendance, 
that  he  had  answered  the  questions 
promptly,  that  he  had  been  one  of  the 
brightest  and  best  boys  in  the  class.  Unless 
Bible  school  boys  become  honest  men,  then 
the  Bible  school  workers  have  failed.  If 
any  girl  of  the  church  should  some  day 
become  a  woman  of  whom  her  acquaint- 
ances should  say,  "We  cannot  depend  on 
anything  she  says,"  then  all  of  her  church 
going  and  Bible  school  attendance  would 
[235] 


HONESTY 

count  for  nothing,  for  the  Christian  church 
has  nothing  to  be  proud  of  except  the  honest 
men  and  the  honest  women  whom  she  pre- 
sents to  the  world.  "You  can  always  rely 
upon  him!" — what  finer  thing  can  be  said 
of  any  man  than  that?  "  He  was  an  honest 
man!"  Around  an  open  grave  there  is  no 
eulogy  sweeter  than  that. 

When  Abraham  Lincoln  was  called  to 
the  White  House  a  fearful  storm  was  brew- 
ing. Black  clouds  had  massed  themselves 
around  all  the  horizon,  and  were  rapidly 
climbing  up  the  sky.  Soon  after  the  new 
President  reached  Washington  the  storm 
broke  with  frightful  fury,  and  the  Repub- 
lic quaked  from  top  to  foundation. 
Through  the  four  awful  years  of  storm  the 
hearts  of  men  often  sank  within  them,  and 
more  than  once  hope  would  have  com- 
pletely died,  had  they  not  been  able  to  turn 
their  faces  toward  the  Capitol  and  brace 
[236] 


HONESTY 

their  spirits  by  looking  into  the  face  of  the 
man  whom  they  lovingly  called  "  Honest 
Abe."  At  the  darkest  crisis  which  the  Re- 
public had  ever  known,  men  could  find  no 
greater,  diviner  adjective  to  place  before 
the  name  of  the  nation's  ruler  than  that 
plain  and  simple  word,  "  Honest."  He  was 
indeed  "  Honest  Abe."  He  blessed  us  all 
the  years  that  he  lived  among  us.  His 
memory  is  a  blessing  forevermore.  An 
English  poet  has  expressed  what  all  good 
men  feel,  "An  honest  man's  the  noblest 
work  of  God." 


[237] 


X 

BEING    A    CHRI.STIAN 

"  Follow  Me."  JOHN  i :  43. 

Preached  Sunday  Morning 
May   9,   1909 


BEING  A  CHRISTIAN 

THERE  are  millions  of  human  beings 
in  our  world  who  are  known  as 
Christians.  There  are  tens  of 
thousands  of  churches  composed  of  Chris- 
tians, and  the  chief  aim  of  all  these  churches 
is  to  make  still  other  Christians.  It  is 
said  of  one  man,  "  He  is  a  Christian," 
and  of  another,  "  He  is  not  a  Christian." 
The  question  is  sometimes  asked,  "  Are  you 
a  Christian?"  and  now  and  then  one  hears 
the  sigh,  "I  wish  I  were  a  Christian!" 
The  word  is  used  as  though  it  had  a  definite 
and  familiar  meaning,  one  perfectly  under- 
stood by  everybody,  and  yet  it  is  not  safe  to 
take  too  much  for  granted.  It  may  be  that 
some  boy  or  girl  who  hears  me  speak,  does 
not  know  just  what  a  Christian  is,  or  if  he 
does  know,  he  cannot  tell.  I  have  met  even 
[241] 


BEING  A   CHRISTIAN 

grown  folks  who  did  not  seem  to  know,  for 
when  asked  for  a  definition  they  hesitated 
and  stammered  in  ways  that  proved  that 
their  minds  were  quite  confused.  Now  in 
a  world  in  which  so  much  is  spoken  and 
written  concerning  Christians,  and  so  much 
is  attempted  and  done  by  professing  Chris- 
tians, and  so  great  importance  is  attached 
to  the  act  of  becoming  a  Christian,  it  is  cer- 
tainly worth  while  to  try  to  get  a  clear  idea 
of  what  a  Christian  really  is,  so  that  we 
may  know  Christians  when  we  see  them, 
and  may  be  able  to  decide  whether  we  our- 
selves are  Christians  or  not. 

There  are  five  questions  which  every 
alert  boy  and  girl  is  sure  soon  or  late  to 
ask,  and  it  is  those  five  questions  to  which 
I  now  invite  your  attention.  The  questions 
are  these:  What  is  it  to  be  a  Christian? 
How  may  one  become  a  Christian?  How 
early  is  it  possible  or  permissible  to  become 
[242] 


BEING  A  CHRISTIAN 
a  Christian?     How  can  one  know  that  he  is 
a    Christian?     How    can    one    remain    a 
Christian? 

To  find  out  what  it  is  to  be  a  Christian 
we  need  only  to  open  our  New  Testament 
and  read  a  few  chapters  in  any  one  of  the 
four  Gospels,  for  there  we  get  the  idea  of 
Jesus,  and  his  idea  is  sure  to  be  both  clear 
and  correct.  The  men  who  wrote  the  Gos- 
pels are  all  agreed  that  Jesus'  favorite  ex- 
hortation was  "Follow  Me!"  Those  who 
followed  him  were  at  first  called  disciples, 
but  later  became  known  as  Christians.  A 
Christian,  then,  according  to  the  New 
Testament,  is  one  who  follows  Jesus. 

But  right  here  another  question  must  be 
faced  and  answered.  What  is  it  to  follow 
Jesus?  Is  it  to  imitate  him,  his  dress,  his 
manners,  his  way  of  life?  To  follow  him 
must  we  wear  sandals  and  a  turban  and  a 
tunic,  lie  down  on  the  floor  when  we  eat, 
[243] 


BEING  A  CHRISTIAN 
and  eat  the  precise  dishes  of  which  he  was 
fond?  Must  we  work  for  a  season  in  a  car- 
penter's shop,  then  travel  from  city  to  city 
as  a  wandering  preacher,  speaking  parables 
and  exhorting  people  to  be  good?  Oh,  no! 
To  follow  does  not  mean  to  imitate  either 
the  dress  or  the  customs  or  the  outward 
forms  of  behavior.  To  follow  a  man  means 
to  accept  his  principles  and  to  obey  his 
orders.  A  follower  of  Darwin  does  not 
feel  obliged  to  dress  as  Darwin  dressed  or 
to  live  as  Darwin  lived.  A  Darwinian  ac- 
cepts the  doctrines  which  Darwin  taught. 
A  follower  of  Lincoln  did  not  live  in  the 
White  House  or  send  messages  to  Congress. 
He  simply  accepted  Lincoln's  principles  of 
statesmanship  and  assisted  him  in  the  saving 
of  the  Union.  Sometimes  followers  are 
known  as  "  adherents "  because  they  stick 
to  or  cling  to  their  leader.  Sometimes 
they  are  called  "  supporters "  because  they 
[244] 


BEING  A  CHRISTIAN 
hold  up  their  leader's  cause.  Sometimes 
they  are  called  "backers,"  because  the 
leader  can  fall  back  upon  them  for  in- 
fluence and  assistance.  Sometimes  they  are 
called  "disciples"  or  "learners,"  because 
they  are  instructed  by  their  leader  and  make 
his  ideas  their  own.  A  Christian,  then,  is  a 
follower,  an  adherent,  a  supporter,  a  backer, 
a  learner  of  Jesus.  Any  one  who  accepts 
Jesus'  teaching  and  obeys  or  tries  to  obey 
his  orders  is  a  Christian. 

But  at  this  point  another  question  faces 
us.  What  is  the  teaching  of  Jesus?  It 
can  all  be  summed  up,  I  think,  in  one  sen- 
tence. God  is  a  loving  Father  and  all 
human  beings  are  his  children,  and  every 
one  of  them  can  come  to  the  Father  through 
his  well-beloved  son  Jesus.  And  what  are 
his  commandments?  They  can  all  be  re- 
duced to  one — Love.  When  men  asked 
him  to  tell  them  the  greatest  of  all  com- 
[245] 


BEING   A   CHRISTIAN 

mandments,  he  said,  "  Love  God  and  love 
your  neighbor,"  and  he  was  never  able  to 
add  anything  to  that.  There  is  nothing 
else  which  it  is  possible  to  add.  Love  ex- 
presses everything.  Shortly  before  Jesus 
died  on  the  cross  he  said  to  his  disciples: 
"  A  new  commandment  I  give  unto  you  that 
ye  love  one  another  even  as  I  have  loved 
you."  This  was  in  reality  nothing  but  the 
old  commandment  made  new  by  being  held 
in  the  light  of  Jesus'  life.  Let  us  fix  it  then 
firmly  in  our  mind  that  a  Christian  is  one 
who  believes  something  about  Jesus  and 
who  does  something  for  him.  He  believes 
that  God  is  a  Father,  that  all  men  are  his 
children,  and  that  all  men  can  come  to  the 
Father  only  through  Jesus.  He  may  be- 
lieve a  hundred  other  things  and  still  be  a 
Christian,  but  the  thing  that  makes  him  a 
Christian  believer  is  the  thing  which  I  have 
stated  about  God,  and  Man  and  Jesus.  But 
[246] 


.  BEING   A   CHRISTIAN 

a  Christian  is  a  doer  as  well  as  a  believer, 
and  the  one  thing  he  must  do  is  to  love. 
He  may  do  a  hundred  other  things  and  still 
be  a  Christian,  but  the  thing  which  makes 
him  a  Christian  doer  is  loving  God  and  lov- 
ing man. 

How  can  one  become  a  Christian,  or  in 
other  words  how  can  one  become  a  follower 
or  adherent  or  supporter  or  backer  or 
learner  of  Jesus?  It  has  often  been 
counted  a  hard  question  and  very  long  and 
puzzling  answers  have  been  given.  To  be- 
come a  Christian  has  sometimes  been  made 
/ 

a  matter  so  difficult  and  so  mysterious  that 
even  grown  folks  have  been  bewildered  and 
baffled.  But  according  to  the  New  Testa- 
ment there  is  nothing  mysterious  or  wonder- 
ful at  all  in  becoming  a  Christian.  Pro- 
vided a  man  wants  to  become  a  Christian 
nothing  can  be  simpler  or  easier.  When 
Jesus  said  to  certain  men  in  the  first  cen- 
[247] 


BEING   A   CHRISTIAN 

tury,  "  Follow  me  "  and  they  followed  him, 
they  became  Christians  from  that  hour.  So 
is  it  to-day.  One  became  a  Christian  in 
Palestine  by  making  up  his  mind  to  be  one, 
and  one  becomes  a  Christian  in  America  in 
precisely  the  same  way.  You  all  know 
what  it  is  to  make  up  your  mind.  You 
have  made  it  up  a  thousand  times  and  you 
know  exactly  how  to  do  it.  You  make  up 
your  mind  to  go  to  school,  to  read  a  book, 
to  play  a  game,  to  take  music  lessons,  to  go 
on  a  visit,  to  learn  a  trade.  Just  so  you 
make  up  your  mind  to  go  to  school  to  Jesus, 
to  take  lessons  from  him,  to  read  the  book 
which  tells  about  him,  to  listen  to  him  and 
to  obey  him.  There  is  nothing  mysterious 
about  this.  Anybody  can  do  it  who  wants 
to  do  it.  A  little  boy  can  do  it,  a  young 
man  can  do  it,  an  aged  man  can  do  it 
Anybody  can  do  it  if  he  only  wants  to. 
Of  course  it  means  a  great  deal  to  become 
[248] 


BEING  A  CHRISTIAN 
a  Christian.  If  you  decide  to  accept  the 
doctrine  of  Jesus  you  must  turn  your  back 
on  all  teachers  who  teach  anything  different 
from  him.  If  you  make  up  your  mind  to 
obey  his  orders,  you  cannot  take  orders  from 
any  one  else.  Becoming  a  Christian  means 
turning  away  from  everything  you  believe 
to  be  wrong,  it  means  turning  toward  every- 
thing you  think  to  be  right.  It  means  that 
you  are  to  speak  the  truth,  for  speaking 
falsehoods  is  breaking  the  commandment  to 
love,  and  it  means  that  you  are  to  be  honest 
in  word  and  deed,  for  dishonesty  is  also  a 
violation  of  the  law  of  love.  It  means  that 
you  are  to  strive  always  to  control  your 
temper  and  hold  your  tongue,  for  if  you  do 
not  do  this  you  sin  against  love.  You  have 
made  up  your  mind  to  live  a  new  life,  when 
you  make  up  your  mind  to  follow  Jesus. 

But  some  big  boy  now  puts  in  this  ques- 
tion :     "  Is  it  not  necessary  to  have  faith  in 
[249] 


BEING  A  CHRISTIAN 
order  to  become  a  Christian,  and  must  not 
one  repent  and  be  converted  and  have  a 
change  of  heart  and  be  born  again  and  be 
regenerated?  "  And  the  answer  is  Yes,  you 
must  believe  and  repent  and  be  converted 
and  be  born  again,  but  you  need  not  bother 
about  any  of  these  long  names.  All  of 
these  things  have  been  fulfilled  whenever 
one  makes  up  his  mind  to  follow  Jesus.  No 
one  could  or  would  make  up  his  mind  to 
follow  a  leader  unless  he  had  faith  in  that 
leader,  and  the  act  of  turning  from  an  old 
leader  to  a  new  one  is  conversion,  and  no 
one  would  ever  turn,  were  there  not  a 
change  of  mind,  which  is  repentance,  and  a 
change  of  heart,  which  is  regeneration. 
But  the  mastery  of  big  words  is  not  neces- 
sary to  make  one  a  Christian.  A  Christian 
is  a  follower  of  Jesus,  and  any  one  who  fol- 
lows him  has  repented  and  has  been  con- 
verted and  has  been  born  again. 
[250] 


BEING  A  CHRISTIAN 
One  might,  to  be  sure,  make  up  his  mind 
to  follow  Jesus  and  yet  not  do  it,  just  as  one 
might  decide  to  do  anything  else  and  later 
on  change  his  mind.  And  so  it  is  hardly 
correct  to  say  that  making  up  one's  mind  is 
everything.  That  is  the  first  thing,  but  this 
action  of  the  mind  must  show  itself  in  con- 
duct. One  must  not  only  make  up  his  mind 
to  follow  Jesus,  but  he  must  begin  forth- 
with to  do  it.  And  the  first  act  by  which 
he  makes  it  clear  to  the  world  that  he  is 
indeed  a  follower  of  Jesus  is  called  "  con- 
fession." The  act  by  which  Jesus  wishes 
his  disciples  to  confess  that  they  are  his,  is 
baptism,  and  that  is  the  reason  why  every 
one  who  makes  up  his  mind  to  follow  Jesus 
is  sooner  or  later  baptized.  When  men  in 
Jerusalem  one  day  asked  Simon  Peter  what 
he  wanted  them  to  do,  his  reply  was,  "  Re- 
pent ye  and  be  baptized  in  the  name  of 
Jesus  Christ."  In  saying  this  he  was  say- 
£251] 


BEING  A  CHRISTIAN 
ing:  "Turn  to  Jesus  and  confess  him." 
The  Apostle  Paul  says  that  if  we  confess 
with  the  mouth  Jesus  as  Lord  and  believe 
in  our  heart  that  God  raised  him  from  the 
dead  we  shall  be  saved.  This,  then,  is  our 
conclusion  in  regard  to  the  matter,  that  to 
become  a  Christian  one  must  first  make  up 
his  mind  to  follow  Jesus  and  then  begin  at 
once  both  by  word  and  deed  to  show  that 
he  is  doing  it. 

The  next  question  need  not  detain  us 
long,  although  the  answer  to  it  has  not  al- 
ways been  correctly  given.  The  disciples 
of  Jesus  were  on  a  certain  occasion  rebuked 
by  their  Master  because  of  their  mistaken 
notion  of  the  privileges  of  children,  and  a 
good  many  grown  people  since  the  days  of 
the  Apostles  have  merited  a  similar  rebuke. 
It  has  been  often  asserted  that  little  boys  and 
girls  cannot  become  Christians,  and  that  it 
is  necessary  for  them  to  wait  several  years 
[252] 


BEING  A  CHRISTIAN 
until  they  have  grown  up  and  are  able  to 
understand  most  or  all  of  the  big  words 
which  the  preacher  makes  use  of  in  his  ser- 
mons. I  have  known  boys  and  girls  who 
wished  that  they  could  become  Christians, 
but  who  felt  it  was  impossible  because  they 
were  not  yet  old  enough.  Now  all  this  is 
a  big,  sad  mistake.  Any  one  is  old  enough 
to  become  a  Christian  who  is  old  enough  to 
make  up  his  mind  to  follow  Jesus.  As  soon 
as  one  can  understand  that  there  is  a  good 
being  named  Jesus,  and  can  feel  a  desire  to 
please  him,  he  is  old  enough  to  call  himself 
a  Christian.  All  boys  and  girls  old  enough 
to  walk  and  talk,  to  think  and  to  feel,  are 
old  enough  to  become  followers  of  Jesus, 
and  if  they  try  to  please  him  they  ought  al- 
ways to  think  and  speak  of  themselves  as 
Christians.  It  would  be  a  great  pity  if  a 
boy  or  girl  should  feel  that  he  or  she  could 
not  become  a  follower  of  Jesus  until  some 
[253] 


BEING   A   CHRISTIAN 

particular  birthday  had  been  reached,  or 
until  a  certain  amount  of  the  Bible  had 
been  learned. 

Jesus  does  not  lay  down  any  such  narrow 
or  foolish  lines,  and  we  should  not  lay  them 
down.  As  soon  as  one  wants  to  follow 
Jesus,  he  can  do  it.  As  soon  as  he  does  it 
he  is  a  Christian.  But  what  shall  we  say 
of  the  little  children  who  are  not  old  enough 
either  to  walk  or  to  talk  or  to  think?  They 
cannot  call  themselves  Christians.  What 
shall  we  call  them?  I  think  we  have  a  right 
to  call  them  Christians,  for  I  do  not  know 
of  a  better  or  higher  name.  Surely  we  want 
to  give  them  the  very  best  name  in  our  pos- 
session, for  the  reason  that  "out  of  the 
mouth  of  babes  and  sucklings  God  has  per- 
fected praise,"  and  Jesus  himself  has  de- 
clared that  "  of  such  is  the  kingdom  of 
heaven."  If  he  desired  that  little  "tots" 
who  could  not  walk  to  him  should  be  car- 
[254] 


BEING   A   CHRISTIAN 
ried  to  him,  I  feel  sure  he  would  not  object 
to  having  them  bear  his  name. 

How  can  one  know  that  he  is  a  Chris- 
tian? Here  again  the  answer  is  much 
easier  than  many  people  have  imagined. 
It  has  sometimes  been  said  that  one  cannot 
know,  that  the  very  best  we  can  do  is  simply 
to  trust  and  hope.  Many  good  people 
have  said  and  believed  this,  but  they  have 
not  been  wise.  Their  mind  has  become 
confused,  and  although  they  have  been 
sincere  in  their  opinions  they  have  made  not 
only  themselves  miserable  but  everybody 
else  who  has  been  willing  to  accept  their 
ways  of  thinking.  For  how  could  one  be 
happy  if  he  did  not  know  whether  he  was 
a  Christian  or  not?  Perplexity  in  impor- 
tant matters  is  distressing.  If  it  is  impor- 
tant that  one  shall  be  a  Christian,  it  is  cer- 
tainly desirable  that  he  should  know 
whether  he  has  succeeded  in  becoming  what 
[255] 


BEING  A  CHRISTIAN 
he  wants  to  be.  When  men  and  women 
say,  "  I  hope  I  am  a  Christian,"  or  "  I  trust 
that  I  am  a  Christian,"  they  are  using  lan- 
guage which  does  not  have  the  New  Testa- 
ment ring.  It  lacks  the  New  Testament 
certainty  and  therefore  lacks  the  New 
Testament  joy.  It  is  sometimes  thought 
that  if  a  person  is  sure  that  he  is  a  Chris- 
tian, and  says  so,  he  is  presumptuous,  and 
that  to  say,  "  I  hope  I  am  a  Christian  "  is  a 
mark  of  humility.  All  such  talk  is  no  evi- 
dence of  humility,  but  proof  of  confusion  in 
the  mind.  If  grown  folks  get  confused  it 
is  not  surprising  that  boys  and  girls  should 
find  themselves  perplexed.  One  cause  of 
their  perplexity  is  their  failure  to  do  what 
they  know  they  ought  to  do.  When  one 
thinks  or  says  or  does  something  which  he 
knows  is  not  right  he  is  apt  to  say,  "  I  do  not 
believe  I  am  a  Christian  at  all." 

Let  us  come  back,  then,  again  to  our  defi- 
[256] 


BEING  A  CHRISTIAN 
nition  of  Christian.  If  a  Christian  is  a 
follower  of  Jesus,  ought  it  to  be  difficult  to 
find  out  whether  one's  aim  is  to  follow  him 
or  not?  We  have  no  difficulty  in  deciding 
such  questions  in  other  departments  of  life. 
If  you  are  going  to  school  to  a  certain 
teacher  and  some  one  asks  you  if  you  are 
his  pupil,  you  do  not  say,  "  I  hope  so."  If 
you  are  being  treated  by  a  physician  and 
some  one  asks  if  you  take  his  medicine,  you 
do  not  reply,  "  I  trust  so."  If  you  are  the 
friend  of  anybody,  and  are  asked  if  you  are 
indeed  the  friend  of  that  person,  you  do  not 
say  sadly,  "  I  think  I  am  but  am  not  cer- 
tain." If  a  man  is  a  carpenter  he  knows  it, 
if  he  is  a  lawyer  or  farmer  he  knows  it,  if 
he  is  a  supporter  of  the  President  in  his 
policies  he  knows  it,  if  he  is  a  citizen  of  a 
certain  city  he  knows  it,  if  he  is  fond  of 
Mozart  or  Wagner  he  knows  it.  In  short, 
we  never  have  any  difficulty  in  deciding 
[257] 


BEING  A  CHRISTIAN 
what  we  are  until  we  come  to  religion,  and 
then  all  at  once  we  become  uncertain  and 
bewildered.  But  this  is  both  needless  and 
mischievous.  We  ought  to  know  positively 
whether  or  not  we  are  Christians,  and  if  we 
are  Christians  we  ought  to  say  so  both  to 
ourselves  and  to  others.  The  more  certain 
we  are  that  we  are  followers  of  Jesus  the 
stronger  we  shall  be  in  doing  his  will. 

But  here  some  big  boy  comes  in  with  the 
remark  that  he  does  not  know  whether  or 
not  he  is  a  Christian,  because  he  does  not 
remember  the  precise  hour  in  which  he  be- 
came one.  He  is  not  the  only  person  who 
has  gotten  into  difficulty  at  that  point.  But 
how  needless  it  is  to  lose  one's  way  here. 
The  ability  to  remember  the  exact  moment 
in  which  one  makes  up  his  mind  to  follow 
Jesus  is  of  no  importance  whatever.  Do 
you  remember  the  time  when  you  first 
opened  your  eyes  and  saw  the  trees  and  the 
[258] 


BEING  A  CHRISTIAN 
sky?  Certainly  not.  How  do  you  know 
then  that  you  are  alive?  Simply  by  your 
feelings,  your  thoughts  and  your  actions. 
It  is  a  matter  of  no  importance  when  you 
began  to  live,  the  important  thing  is  that 
you  are  alive  now.  What  does  it  matter 
when  you  became  a  Christian,  or  whether 
you  remember  the  day  or  the  hour  or  not? 
The  one  thing  which  it  is  important  for  you 
to  know  is  whether  or  not  you  are  a  Chris- 
tian now,  and  you  can  get  light  on  that  im- 
portant question,  not  .by  going  back  to  the 
beginning  of  your  Christian  life,  but  by  not- 
ing the  kind  of  life  you  are  living  now.  If 
you  are  the  follower,  supporter,  and  learner 
of  Jesus,  then  you  may  be  assured  that  you 
are  a  Christian,  no  matter  how  thick  may  be 
the  fog  that  hangs  round  the  beginning  of 
your  Christian  life. 

We  come  now  to  the  last  question  which 
is  the  most  interesting  and  difficult  of  all: 
[259] 


BEING  A  CHRISTIAN 
How  can  one  remain  a  Christian?  It  is 
easy  enough  to  become  a  Christian  and  to 
know  that  one  is  a  Christian,  but  to  remain 
a  Christian  is  not  so  easy.  It  is  easy  to  en- 
roll as  a  pupil  in  a  school,  but  it  is  not  so 
easy  to  finish  the  course.  It  is  easy  to  enlist 
in  an  army,  but  it  is  not  so  easy  to  fight 
through  all  of  the  campaigns.  It  is  easy  to 
begin  to  build  a  tower,  but  it  is  not  easy  to 
finish.  How  can  one  remain  a  Christian 
through  all  of  the  years  down  to  the  very 
end  of  the  chapter,  that  is  a  question  indeed. 
Let  me  give  you  three  bits  of  advice,  each 
bit  expressed  in  a  word  of  one  syllable,  and 
I  give  them  to  you  with  great  boldness  and 
gladness  because  they  are  favorite  words  of 
Jesus. 

The  first  word  is  "  Watch."     Keep  your 

eyes  open.     Be  on  the  lookout.     Do  not  get 

careless.     Do   not  go  to   sleep.     Being  a 

Christian  is  serious  business,  and  in  order 

[260] 


BEING  A  CHRISTIAN 
to  succeed  one  must  have  all  his  wits  about 
him.  Watch,  first  of  all,  your  body.  You 
must  make  it  your  servant.  Be  careful 
what  you  eat  and  drink.  Get  an  abundance 
of  sleep,  an  abundance  of  air,  and  use  an 
abundance  of  water.  What  you  need  is 
energy,  and  you  cannot  secure  energy  unless 
you  keep  your  body  in  the  very  best  possible 
condition.  If  you  lack  energy  your  feel- 
ings are  likely  to  become  morbid,  and  worse 
than  that  your  will  power  is  almost  sure 
to  become  weak,  and  with  morbid  feelings 
and  a  weak  will,  you  will  find  it  impossible 
to  follow  Jesus.  In  order  to  control  all 
your  appetites  and  passions  and  impulses 
and  inclinations — and  all  of  these  are  as 
strong  as  horses — it  is  necessary  for  you  to 
have  an  abundance  of  energy,  and  you  can 
get  energy  by  taking  care  of  your  body. 

Next,   watch   your   mind.      Do   not  let 
it  play   off   on   you.     Hold    it  up    to    a 
[261] 


BEING  A  CHRISTIAN 
high  standard  of  duty.  Do  not  let  it  play 
with  things  which  are  dirty.  Do  not  let 
it  become  a  nest  for  thoughts  which  are 
vile.  Do  not  allow  it  to  debate  such 
questions  as  "ought  I  to  speak  the  truth?" 
or  "ought  I  to  do  what  is  right?"  If 
you  stop  to  argue  such  questions  you  are 
almost  certain  to  fall.  Keep  a  sharp  eye 
always  on  your  mind,  or  as  Paul  used  to 
say,  "  Gird  up  the  loins  of  your  mind." 
Watch  also  your  associates.  You  can  catch 
measles  and  whooping-cough,  you  can  also 
catch  character.  It  is  easy  to  recover  from 
measles  and  whooping-cough,  but  you  may 
never  recover  from  a  bad  character.  If  your 
companions  are  found  to  be  pulling  you 
away  from  the  right  path,  then  give  them 
up,  and  choose  others.  Never  forget  that 
books  also  are  companions,  and  that  a  bad  or 
foolish  book  can  do  an  incalculable  amount 
of  mischief.  You  will  always  be  exposed 
[262] 


BEING  A  CHRISTIAN 
to  temptations,  and  therefore  you  must  be 
ever  on  your  guard.  Temptations  never 
come  in  the  form  of  spiders  or  toads  or 
snakes,  but  always  in  forms  which  look  both 
harmless  and  pleasing.  Remember  it  is 
Jesus  who  says,  "  Watch." 

He  also  says  "  Pray."  You  are  always 
in  need  of  strength.  You  need  all  of  your 
own,  but  no  matter  how  much  this  amounts 
to,  you  need  also  a  strength  not  your  own. 
Such  strength  you  can  obtain  from  Jesus. 
He  has  promised  it  and  he  always  keeps  his 
promises.  All  that  is  necessary  in  order  to 
obtain  it  is  to  want  it  and  ask  for  it,  and  then 
go  straight  ahead  and  mak£  use  of  it.  If 
you  do  not  want  it  you  cannot  ask  for  it,  and 
if  you  do  not  ask  for  it  you  will  not  receive 
it.  Speaking  to  Jesus  is  prayer.  He  is  al- 
ways near  you  so  that  you  can  speak  to  him 
whenever  you  wish.  He  is  always  your 
friend,  so  that  his  help  when  asked  for  is 
[263] 


BEING  A  CHRISTIAN 
absolutely  certain.  One  cannot  be  a  Chris- 
tian without  praying,  for  Jesus'  great  com- 
mandment is  "  Love  God,"  and  we  always 
speak  to  those  whom  we  love.  If  Jesus  is 
our  friend,  then  of  course  we  shall  speak 
to  him,  for  it  is  a  queer  sort  of  friendship  in 
which  friends  do  not  speak.  Paul  tells  us 
to  pray  without  ceasing,  and  the  reason  why 
he  says  this  is  because  he  found  out  that  by 
praying  he  became  strong  enough  to  do  all 
his  work.  "  I  can  do  all  things,"  he  says, 
"  through  Christ  who  strengthens  me." 

The  third  word  of  counsel  is  "Work!" 
Because  many  of  the  men  and  women  in 
Palestine  were  working  in  vineyards,  Jesus 
used  to  liken  the  world  to  a  vineyard  into 
which  God  had  sent  everybody  to  work. 
Jesus  was  always  busy.  He  went  about  do- 
ing good.  He  never  could  endure  idle 
people  about  him.  Whenever  men  became 
his  followers  he  sent  them  out  at  once  to  do 
[264] 


BEING  A  CHRISTIAN 
something.  Every  talent  must  be  used,  and 
if  ever  a  single  talent  is  not  employed,  then 
the  possessor  of  it  is  disgraced.  The  word 
"work"  was  often  on  the  lips  of  Jesus,  and 
another  word  he  was  fond  of  was  "  service." 
He  liked  this  word,  because  it  is  the  work 
which  servants  do.  Jesus  was  not  ashamed 
to  be  called  a  servant  and  he  told  his  dis- 
ciples that  this  was  the  proudest  name  which 
they  could  bear.  When  he  saw  how  eager 
they  were  for  honors,  he  told  them  that  to 
be  a  servant  is  the  greatest  honor  which  a 
man  can  have.  The  highest  place  in  all  the 
world  is  the  place  in  which  one  can  make 
himself  most  useful  to  the  largest  number 
of  neddy  people.  A  man's  greatness,  there- 
fore, according  to  Jesus,  is  to  be  measured 
by  his  usefulness,  and  the  one  who  is  sure 
to  be  rewarded  is  the  one  who  has  been 
faithful  in  the  doing  of  his  task.  It  was 
the  crowning  joy  of  Jesus'  life  that  he  was 
[265] 


BEING  A  CHRISTIAN 
able  to  say  at  the  close  of  his  life  in  speak- 
ing to  God,  "  I  have  finished  the  work 
which  thou  gavest  me  to  do,"  and  what  this 
work  was,  you  may  judge  from  the  remark 
which  he  once  made  in  the  hearing  of  his 
disciples,  "  The  son  of  man  is  come  not  to 
be  ministered  unto  but  to  minister  and  to 
give  his  life  a  ransom  for  many." 

To  work  most  successfully  you  must  work 
in  company  with  others.  One  cannot  do 
much  all  by  himself ;  moreover,  it  is  lonely 
and  one  gets  discouraged.  Jesus  intends 
that  his  followers  shall  work  together,  help- 
ing one  another,  supplying  one  another's 
deficiencies,  and  cheering  one  another  in 
the  midst  of  difficulties  and  disappoint- 
ments. And  so  he  formed  a  brotherhood 
or  family  of  which  all  his  followers  should 
be  members,  and  this  family  is  now  known 
throughout  the  world  as  the  Church  of 
Jesus.  Against  it  no  power,  however 
[266] 


BEING  A  CHRISTIAN 
mighty,  will  ever  be  able  to  prevail.  Its 
mission  is  to  worship  and  to  work.  On 
entrance  into  it,  one  is  baptized  into  the 
name  of  Jesus,  and  at  stated  intervals  the 
Lord's  Supper  is  partaken  of,  as  a  reminder 
that  we  live  and  work  and  conquer  solely 
through  the  strength  of  him  who  loved  us 
and  gave  himself  for  us. 


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